3rd Fusion Nuclear Receptor Conference: A Early Career Researcher's Perspective

By: Amy

Insights by Rayzel Fernandes (Imperial College London)

Earlier this month I attended the 3^rd Nuclear Receptors conference in Cancun, Mexico. For many of the attendees (including me), this was the first in-person meeting after the pandemic and consisted of four days of stimulating scientific talks, discussions, and networking.

The meeting started off with welcome comments by the conference chairs Charlotte Bevan from Imperial College London and Wayne Tilley from the University of Adelaide. This was followed by the sessions on ‘Nuclear receptors (NRS) in the female reproductive tract’ and ‘Insights into diversity of NR functions. The sessions at this meeting were very well curated with talks on the following days addressing various other aspects of NR biology such as transcriptional regulation, epigenomics, cofactor interactions, and therapeutic targeting of NRs. All the talks were followed by discussions in which early career researchers (ECRs) were actively encouraged to participate. I particularly enjoyed the panel discussions which followed every session which sparked fascinating debates on topics such as sexual dimorphism in NR function, the importance of translating research to clinical settings and the future of NR targeting therapies.

I participated as a poster presenter and while the posters were displayed throughout the conference, I was able to discuss my work with other attendees during the dedicated poster session on the third day. I found this invaluable as I got a lot of feedback that I will be incorporating into my current research and also developed potential collaborations.

The conference ended on the fourth day with a round table discussion on ‘the future of NRs’ that covered a lot of thought-provoking subjects including better experimental models for research, technological advances in the field and the role of machine learning/artificial intelligence on NR research in the near future.

What I liked best about this conference (besides the excellent science!) was the relaxed and friendly atmosphere throughout. I think this was helped by the size (of about 50 people), which was smaller than other conferences I’ve attended but was an advantage as it was much easier to interact with everyone. The group, gala dinner and excursion also helped foster this friendly setting so it was less intimidating for trainees like me to ask questions and approach PIs. Overall, this was an outstanding conference that I’m glad I had an opportunity to attend. I’m looking forward to attending the next NR conference and would encourage other ECRS to do so too!