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Conference Summary
Experimental Biology Annual Meeting
April 28-May 2, 2007. Washington, DC
Julia Arciero
PhD Candidate
Applied Math GIDP
On April 27 – May 2, 2007, I had the pleasure of attending Experimental Biology 2007 in Washington, D.C. As an applied mathematics graduate student, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to attend conferences such as Experimental Biology where I am able to meet and discuss my research interests with experimentalists and clinicians. Since I am interested in using mathematics to model different physiological phenomena in the microcirculation, meeting with physiologists and attending talks and posters sessions on these topics teaches me about the biological background of my model, provides me with important insight for my model, and introduces me to additional problems and questions in my field of interest. In addition, I value the opportunity to share my mathematical perspective with biologists and explain the predictive capabilities that models can offer experimentalists.
I particularly enjoyed attending the Microcirculatory Society President’s Symposium during which there were four talks on different aspects of the microcirculation: autoregulation I n kidney, cerebral circulation and the blood-brain interface, problems involving the circulatory and immune systems, and the link between tissue hypoxia and cancer. In addition, the Microcirculatory Society also sponsored a Young Investigator Symposium that focused on computation models in the microcirculation. This symposium introduced me to other current modeling efforts and challenged me to consider how these models relate to my current research.
On Sunday afternoon I presented my poster entitled “Roles of oxygen-dependent ATP release by red blood cells and conducted responses in metabolic regulation of blood flow.” During this time I met several professors and students who were interested in my model and who offered additional experimental and biological information for my consideration. Many were intrigued by the model’s predictions and were interested in its additional capabilities. I also had the opportunity to view other posters at the session and learn about other aspects of the microcirculation. Some of the studies investigated the interplay of oxygen saturation and hematocrit and provided me with suggestions of additional elements to include in my model.
I am very grateful to the GIDP for the generous Herbert E. Carter Travel Award. This award gave me the opportunity to travel to a conference that fostered an encouraging environment in which researchers share and acquire valuable knowledge across several disciplines of study. Presenting my research in a poster format provided me with valuable experience in presenting and allowed me to gain helpful feedback from experimentalists.
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