Science Club Series 2015/16

The Science Club Series resumes

Science Club Series - 2015/16

Venue: Zoology Museum

Time: 1pm

Last week also our Science Club Series resumed, with 2 events! First, on Tuesday 06 October Prof Spencer J. Greenwood (University of Prince Edward Island, Canada) gave a great talk on The Secret Life of Lobster Vets: unravelling host-pathogen-environment interactions in our favourite crustacean. Spencer is a Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Prince Edward Island (Canada) and also Director-Research Scientist at the AVC Lobster Science Centre (Atlantic Veterinary College, also at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Canada). Spencer's research focusses on crustacean biology, using molecular methods to address questions about host-pathogen interactions and aquatic species and parasitology, and is closely linked to industrial applications of new research findings. At his seminar, Spencer focussed on his research on lobsters:

Abstract:
The American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery forms the backbone of the coastal Maritime economy adds approximately $1 billion to the Atlantic Canadian economy annually. At the AVC Lobster Science Centre, we are applying current transcriptomic technologies (microarray and RNASeq) to explore a variety of basic questions in lobster biology. A summary of recent findings on the lobster’s immune response to different pathogens, biomarkers of larval life stage transitions, biomarkers of sexual maturity, and the impact of anthropogenic stressors (live holding/shipping and pesticides) will be presented.


Then on Thursday we started a cool series of workshops on Scientific Presentation, with a roundtable discussion about the peer review system (see here). These events are mainly targeted for graduate students, but staff members will be welcome, too. We will continue this week with a workshop on using Social Media for science communication, followed by workshops on poster presentations at conferences and on how to write scientific manuscripts for publication. And there will be more to come!

For the full list of Science Club Events, see our blog here