Engaging our community through conference attendance, talks and meeting organisation

The last few months have been characterised by a concerted effort to engage our community through conference attendance, presentations at a wide variety of events and the organisation of meetings that will gather our partners and collaborators both nationally and internationally.

Attendance

The European Human Genetics Conference was held in Glasgow from the 10^th to the 13^th of June and it gathered over 4000 international delegates. We attended with a corporate stand and were delighted with the level of engagement and interest many of the conference attendees showed. We had many productive discussions with attendees with exchanges ranging from the vision and scope of the network projects, what we can do for scientists wanting to model a specific human disease/syndrome, how we can make sure we are able to disseminate our message and outcomes through available channels (journals, websites, databases). Our discussions have already resulted in plans for a Network publication in a leading journal. Watch this space!

Organisation and presentation

Our cluster scientists and our leadership team are also making sure that our work and our extensive collaborations are disseminated through the community by speaking at meetings and conferences and contributing to their organisation.

The Congenital Anomalies cluster is busy finalising the details of a meeting taking place at the Advance Training Centre at MRC Harwell on the 23^rd and 24^th of November that will bring together anyone interested in modelling cardiovascular defects using mouse models. The Congenital Anomalies Cardiovascular Geneboree aims to create a framework for accurately modelling and phenotyping human congenital heart defects in mouse in order to better link human and mouse phenotyping. Registration is free and the meeting can be attended in person or online.

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The DMM2024: Pre-clinical Modelling of Human Genetic Disease and Therapy meeting, taking place in Edinburgh on the 8^th-10^th of May 2024 is organised in collaboration with the Network and Network representatives are in the organising committee (Pleasantine Mill of the Congenital Anomalies cluster and Network Director Owen Sansom) and on the distinguished speakers list where Karen Blyth (Cancer), Cathy Fernandes (MURIDAE), Karen Liu (Congenital Anomalies), Laura Greaves (Mitochondria), Cristina Lo Celso (Haem), Fiona Powrie (Microbiome) and Andrew Wood (Degron) will present their work to the international audience. The Network Oversight Board (OB) and Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) are also represented as both organisers (Wendy Bickmore, OB) and speakers (Liz Patton and Dave Adams, SAB).

Finally, an excellent bid assembled by our colleagues at the CRUK Beatson Institute for Cancer Research and the Mary Lyon Centre at MRC Harwell to host the 38^th International Mammalian Genome Conference was successful! We are excited to co-organise this key event in the mouse genetics community calendar with our partners at the International Mammalian Genome Society and welcome everyone to Glasgow in April 2025! Our scientists will also be eager to share the results of their research and forge new collaborations.