Weeknote #41

A couple of meetings to report on this week; last Wednesday the NanoInfoBio board met to discuss progress. Although the project is due to finish next month, we were recently granted an additional £50K of funding by the EPSRC, which will allow us to extend it into 2012. As I said in an email to the EPSRC this morning, the project really has had a disproportionately positive effect on the Faculty and the University, and the next challenge is to see how we can retain our momentum after the formal funding finishes.

The other meeting of interest was held at the MadLab on Thursday, where the DIYbio organizing team got together to plan our next set of activities. The "big event" will be a DIYbio summit on October 29-30, to be held as part of the 2011 Manchester Science Festival. More details to follow.

Weeknote #40

To Berlin, for the latest general meeting of the BACTOCOM project. I'd never actually visited the city before, which came as a bit of a surprise, so I was glad that we had time to take a walking tour on Thursday morning, before the work began. I took some photos, which are available here. We got lots done (drafting our response to the first year review from the European Commission, and kicking ideas around for a follow-on project), before Nils and Ilka (and their numerous students!) put on a great BBQ. On Friday we put in a few more hours before breaking for lunch, followed by a seminar and then a visit to the adjacent Natural History Museum (the highlights being the World's Tallest Dinosaur Skeleton (officially), and the slightly creepy but strangely compelling storage room, with thousands of specimens held in glass jars). Friday was rounded off with dinner in the Schlesisches Tor district. I also got to chat (briefly) with li5a about DIYbio, so hopefully that will lead to a future link-up. All in all, a great meeting and visit.