Department Retreat and Autumn Immunology Conference
There was a lot of opportunity to network in November, as my lab members and I attended two conference events: the first was the Mayo Clinic Department of Immunology Retreat, held here in Phoenix, AZ, and the second was last weekend’s Autumn Immunology Conference (AIC), held in Chicago, IL. As was the theme this summer, students and scientists have been grateful for the chance to meet together in person again, and it was exciting for me to have trainees presenting their research efforts within the lab for the first time.
My department is distributed across 3 Mayo Clinic sites—Minnesota, Florida, and Arizona. even before the pandemic, we relied on video conferencing to meet on a regular basis. This year was the first in-person department retreat that I had the opportunity to attend, and it was wonderful to host my colleagues here in Arizona. I had not seen some of them face-to-face since my faculty interviews in 2019!
Mayo Clinic Department of Immunology, November 2022. Photo by Justin Choe.
Our graduate students are a great bunch, it has been exciting to get to know them. Photo by Justin Choe.
It has been my honor to supervise my first graduate student, Tina, who achieved her doctoral candidacy earlier this year and is in her 3rd year of the program. Her project on immunotherapy was not something that I had planned in advance when applying for faculty jobs, and so it has been remarkable to watch the project unfold. Tina was selected to present her first podium talk at the retreat, which I was very proud to support her on.
Tina poised and confident for her talk on immunotherapy.
I do my best to push myself when it comes to conferences, and at the retreat, I tried to sit with new people every time. It can be hard to be confident and extroverted when I feel so much like the Awkward Potato, but this is the type of person and professor that I want to be.
Swooping in to sit with unsuspecting students! Photo by Justin Choe.
There are several regional immunology conferences held regularly, but I have not really explored them. This year I checked out the Autumn Immunology Conference, which is heavily attended by Midwesterners and my own institution, the Mayo Clinic. In a way, it was like a mini-extension to our department retreat earlier in the month. I was interested in attending because the format was focused on trainee presentations, and also because of the incredible speaker lineup, which included my postdoctoral mentor! It was great to see her and catch up on how our careers have been since I struck out on my own nearly 3 years ago.
There were a few talks that felt right within my research niche, which is always cool when you are so invested in the content of the talks. I have seen Marc Jenkins speak several times in the past, yet it was still very exciting to hear his fresh take on CD4+ T cells, which he has devoted much of his career to studying. Even so, I remember once seeing him present a talk titled something provocative like, “Why CD4+ T cells don’t matter”. This time, he argued that CD4+ T cell subsetting has gotten a little out of control, and rather we should think about them in the paradigm of CD8+ T cells, where we define states that are plastic, rather than discrete subset fates. It really made me think about the implication of his ideas on my own studies of aging CD4+ T cells, a topic I hope we will be ready to publish next year.
As I noted, the AIC is organized around student presentations, giving them the opportunity to practice the art of the science talk. I had invited my trainees Tina and Jacob to present their projects, and we were also accompanied by Irene, a visiting graduate student I am hosting from the lab of David Sancho at CNIC Madrid. Not only did they get to talk about their research, but I am glad they get to travel!
Graduate student Tina presenting recent developments in the immunotherapy project.
Post-bac Jacob giving his first scientific poster, looking at how aging impacts the germinal center response.
Irene presented her graduate work on thymus biology and T cell development. She has been with the lab for the past 3 months learning new techniques, based on my postdoctoral work, and enjoying life in Arizona.
The conference was for the weekend, but the schedule was relaxed enough to allow some down time to experience Chicago. While the weather was cold, I have finally learned to pack properly and so I really enjoyed being in the city.
Chicago cuisine means deep dish pizza!
The conference was downtown right on Michigan Avenue, which was very picturesque.
With this AIC trip, I finally conclude my hectic 2022 conference schedule. I hope to not do so much in the future, as I am exhausted! I guess I was just so excited to get out there and promote our lab’s work. My intention for next year is to limit to 3 conferences max, but I think AIC will be a strong contender. It was an intimate meeting with a great scientific program, well organized, in a beautiful venue, and at a very affordable price too. This has been a great year for conferences, and I hope that the opportunities continue to grow along with the lab.