Meeting Reports

Abstract

The 2-day training event discussed strategies to engineer sufficiently pure, homogenous and high-quality recombinant proteins that are critical for subsequent structural and functional studies.The selling point of our training event was to teach delegates the science through truly interactive hands-on activities, where participants learn and discuss protein strategies directly with experts from academia and industry.The quality of the training was amazing. Delegates were enthusiastic and happy to network in person, regularly asking questions and presenting their own research protein challenges. We had over 50 participants, mainly early career researchers (ECRs), who enjoyed networking with our keynote trainers: Dan Rigden (Liverpool, UK), Nicola Burgess-Brown (Oxford, UK) and Magdalena Richter (AstraZeneca, UK). We had nine invited trainers from all over the UK and EU with a good mix of academia and industry. We also had flash poster sessions, which were excellent and acted as a great advertisement for the poster sessions held, leading to prizes being awarded.Most of the science and technology was taught through case studies and a unique ‘choose your own adventure’ activity, where delegates learnt by doing and questioning rather than passively listening to speakers. We have all learned a lot, and this type of training in recombinant proteins certainly opened the horizon for many of the ECRs attending.Since we all enjoyed it so much last year, we are returning to the amazing new future-facing venue, The Spine in Liverpool, on 27–28 November 2023. We are again aiming at ECRs or anyone starting out in making and researching proteins, covering the latest bioinformatics tools for construct design and protein characterization, tips and tricks for improving protein expression, purification, stability and evaluating quality with biophysical techniques. There are options to bring samples for demos on the latest protein instruments and to present posters explaining any particular protein problems people are facing.Find out more about the event and register here.