Wilfred Poppinga received NRS Travel Grant
As a PhD student, I have been aiming my studies at understanding the role of signal compartmentalization within the cell. I want to know how disturbing this delicate coordination plays a role in the development of disease, and how it affects therapeutic efficacy.
With the help of the NRS travel grant, I was able to visit the 2016 Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, CA, USA. At this annual meeting, several large American societies, such as the American Physiological Society (APS), American Society for Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), come together to discuss common themes within Experimental Biology.
During this conference I was offered the opportunity to present my work in airway smooth muscle both orally and by poster in a session focused on cell signaling, allowing interactions with people from various backgrounds both as an audience and later at my poster. This was a great way to create new contacts and have input from novel perspectives. I was happy to see the great amount of attention that my research can get in this kind of meeting, ranging from PhD students to professors that are truly interested by the topic of signal compartmentalization.
During this meeting there were many abstracts submitted on compartmentalized signaling and an entire symposium was organized with speakers on this particular topic, giving me the opportunity to renew my knowledge on the field and follow the development of novel tools. I found people doing similar research in other organs, and we could discuss our findings and the limitation of existing tools.
I thank the NRS for this opportunity to visit the Experimental Biology, it allowed me to further develop my ideas for the future, strengthen my network and bring new ideas from other systems with me to try out in the field of respiratory science.
Wilfred J. Poppinga
University of Groningen, Department of Molecular Pharmacology.
Groningen Research Institute of Asthma and COPD (GRIAC)
Groningen Institute for Pharmacy (GRIP)
