Authors: Erin Pallott & Charlotte Mellor // Editor: Erin Pallott

It’s been a busy period for conferences and showcases. Whether you love being in the spotlight and preaching your findings, or you’d much rather be hiding away in the lab focusing on experiments, presentations and conferences are an essential part of your PhD journey.

We have some previous posts of PGRs talking about their experiences and tips when it comes to presenting, and there are many more resources available through the university. One major way to develop your presentation skills, however, is to present! It can be extremely daunting to lay out your work in front of field experts, open for judgement and criticism, but we have a number of internal events where you can primarily present to your own peers. This is the perfect opportunity to gain some practice, with the support of fellow PGRs who are there to do the exact same thing.

This year’s Doctoral Academy Graduate Society (DAGS) Conference was held 16^th June. 21 SBS PGRs gave presentations, and a further 38 posters were presented at the 1-day event held in the Schuster building.

Research Hive were also there! If you have recently given a talk or presented a poster, that is the perfect time to get your research into an accessible blog format. Please contact any member of our team if you’d like to get started!

The event was a fantastic showcase of research and achievements by our own peers, with awards at the end of the day. Megan Priestly was awarded a prize for best talk, who has previously written an article for this blog! Megan also helpfully shared why she puts herself forward for these internal opportunities:

I would say internal conferences are a really great way to find out more about the other work going on at the university – you really have no idea what cool stuff might be going on in the building next door until you go to one of these! Someone could be working on an area that, on paper, seems nothing like your own project, yet hearing about their work could provide a really interesting insight into an aspect of your project you might not even have considered. Presenting at these conferences also gives you a great way to get used to a conference setting in a comfortable environment and gives you practice discussing your work with other people who are keen to present their own. It’s also a great way to meet lots of likeminded people and make new friends!

Megan Priestly

Meg perfectly summed up what you have to gain from taking part in these internal events. We have so much to learn from each other; you may get some ideas on additional experiments, or you may inspire someone else. Communicating with each other is the best way to support each other in our research. I encourage everyone to make use of platforms to help us communicate, including our blog of course!

Keynote Speech Highlights: Professor Cath O’Neill – (Charlotte Mellor)

Cath O’Neill is a Professor of Translational Dermatology and the CSO of SkinBiotherapeutics PLC, a business she spun out from her own research. Her keynote speech at the 2023 DAGS conference was focused on the power of the microbiome, alongside insights into how she successfully managed to capitalise on her research.

Cath began with a history of microbiome research, and discussed different ways people try to boost their microbiome (including some rather interesting tales about faecal transplants!). Her top tip was to take probiotics before travelling to countries with poor-quality water to try and strengthen your microbiome to minimise the risk of diarrhoea.

Cath is a skin scientist, and her interest in the microbiome led her to wonder if probiotics could be used topically to treat skin conditions. Cath decided the best way to further her research would be to form a company, as businesses can take greater financial risks than research institutions. To set this in motion, she worked with the university patent office and put together proposals she needed to raise the finance for her research. Whilst Cath’s long-term plan was always to try and use probiotics to treat skin diseases such as eczema and infection, she realised that it would be a shrewder move to start off by using them for cosmetics purposes. This is because medical applications require extensive (and expensive) human trials, whereas all that is required for a cosmetics product to be launched is that it be proven safe. This led to Cath giving us all a reality check to think about the products we use – just because something is ‘safe’, does it mean that there’s robust testing and science behind it to show it does as it says? She doubts many companies go to such lengths.

Cath then told us how she took her proposals to the 2-day roadshow at the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in April 2017. We all applauded when she revealed that her pitching at this event led to her securing around £4.5 million in investment for her business. This whopping sum allowed her team expand their research – they now licence their unique blends of bacteria to big companies who can produce the product on a massive scale. The most recent of these is the licensing of SkinBiotix (which Cath explained was the ‘cool, catchy’ name for their bacterial lysate) to Croda PLC, who will be using it for cosmetic purposes.

Overall, Professor Cath O’Neill’s talk was incredibly inspiring. She showed us how, if you find something in your research which could have wide uses, it is important that you speak to the appropriate legal professionals to get the idea patented so you can work to take it further. I also think she is a great example of a scientist who seems to be able to do it all – not only is she a successful academic and businesswoman, but she also seems like a fantastic mentor. What an end to a phenomenal day at the DAGS conference.

The DAGS Committee (Ying-Tong Lee, Duc Binh Phan, Susan Limbu, Melanie Seaton, Shiyao Liu, Yamini Meshram and Kyaw Min) can celebrate another successful event, and ask for you all to keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming Summer Ball (date pending).