Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay, but the last two days of the conference were quite hectic! Thursday’s lectures focused around hematopoietic cell differentiation, development, and function, including talks by big wigs such as Irv Weissman! As on tuesday, there was a workshop in the afternoon, although I am not sure how many of us made it to this workshop (we were all pretty tired from our eventful day of skiing on wednesday). As always, the late afternoon talks led to dinner and finally to my poster presentation as well as Carson Wills ’14 poster presentation. We were both pretty nervous, but ended up meeting heaps of wonderful PhD students, post-docs, etc. who were quite impressed to see undergraduates at such a conference and gave many helpful tips on actual experimentation (i.e. “I can  never this stain to work..any suggestions?”), interpretation of data (i.e. “I know why you think this, but actually our lab found that this marker means ___”), as well as ideas for future experiments! Overall, despite being pretty nervous, the poster presentation portion of the meeting was probably most helpful for me in allowing me to further discuss  the research I am currently doing with people outside of the Punterson realm, imbuing my brain with fresh ideas and perspectives. We left quite early on friday and were only able to catch a few talks in the morning about leukomogensis. The rest of friday was spent on a shuttle bus back to Denver, and on a plane from Denver to Philadelphia.

Overall, I would have to say that I quite enjoyed myself at Keystone. Although a bit overwhelming at first (yes, seeing and hearing some of the HSC celebrity researchers whose papers you read and only dream about meeting does make you feel starstruck. Probably more starstruck than seeing some other celebrities like Oprah or George Clooney. Well, maybe not George…), I would have to say that atleast for me this conference opened my eyes to the diversity and expansiveness of HSC research. Although much of Keystone is primarily focused on cellular and molecular biology, there were strong undertones of clinical application – many of the talks in fact included data from phase I or II clinical trials of new potential cancer therapies – which, by my lights, indicates a beautiful intertwining of medicine and science at it’s finest.

Hopefully you have enjoyed reading this blog as much as I have enjoyed attending and blogging about Keystone!

The Punterson Lab

Hello world! I am back again to rehash the Puntersonian adventures of the day. This morning began with another quick breakfast and a slew of lectures on stem cell self-renewal and function. Afterwards we had a chunk of downtime on our hands; not so surprisingly, it did not take long for everyone to hit the slopes! Out on the mountains, I learned that virtually everyone in our lab is an expert skiier/snowboarder/snowshoer (except myself, who has only gone skiing once to date, and Carson, whose skiing debut was today) swiftly navigating double black diamonds as if they were bunny hills.

(Sophie, Lindsay, and Anna about to trek down 10,000 ft down!)

Despite the high altitude and dangerously steep mountainsides, we all made it back in one piece for the second round of lectures on the bone marrow microenvironment followed by dinner and yet another interesting poster session.

(Welcome to Steamboat Springs! This is the view from the 8th floor of the resort where we are quaintly nestled)

Today was our first official day at Keystone! We began the day with a light breakfast and coffee at 7:15 am (for the non-morning folk like myself, the time difference and coffee truly made this bearable). From 8:00 – 11:15 we were bombarded with information about developmental hematopoiesis, touching upon differences between primitive and definitive hematopoiesis as well as picking up a bit of biochemistry and crystallography to highlight structure/function relationships in transcription factors (I feel forever indebted to professor Owen for her wonderful lectures on biochemistry as they were the only reason I could keep up during that talk!). Afterwards we had a quick lab meeting (with pizza!) before returning to the second round of talks focusing on stem cell self-renewal. Although I felt my brain had reached full capacity b 11:15, somehow, someway I was able to make it through a second round of non-stop science! The talks ended with a wonderful keynote address by George Q. Daley, speaking on the simultaneous awe inspiring progress and frustrations of HSC production from pluripotent stem cells. After a light dinner and discussion about some of the talks, our lab headed to the poster presentations where Trevor Barlowe (’13), Sophie Eiger (’14), and Ruben Land (’12) presented some of the most recent and interesting Punterson research! Although I was meandering through the poster session myself, I did see quite the crowds around their poster and I am sure that they gave wonderful presentations to all.

(RL, TB, SE from left to right standing in front of their poster)

Tomorrow we are scheduled for more talks in the morning, but have a free afternoon, which I am sure will be spent dashing down the ski slopes.

Until tomorrow,

Ashley

After a long day of travel, the Puntersons have finally arrived in Steamboat Springs! It is currently -20 degrees and we are waiting for our toes to thaw before we can do anything. The shuttle bus’s fully frosted over windows are testimony to arctic weather here; it is a far cry from the dewy 43 we were enjoying at Haverford a mere 12 hours ago! Well, it is late and time for bed. Tomorrow starts the keynote speakers and Trevor’s poster presentation. More to come!

Ashley