Spotlight on Students: Conor Smith

Connor SmithDo you know what it is like to present a poster at a conference with over 30,000 attendees? Conor Smith, a graduate student in GMS, presented a poster at the Society for Neuroscience meeting where attendees came from all over the world.  He was able to attend the meeting with the help from a travel grant from the GMS office and he sat down to share this exciting experience with all of us.

 

Q: You recently attended the annual Society for Neuroscience 2010 meeting in San Diego. Can you tell us a little about what you were doing there?

There were really two main activities I was concerned with at the meeting. The first was to present my own poster entitled “Mechanisms of Pregnenolone Sulfate-Induced Increases in Plasma Membrane NMDA Receptor Expression in Rat Cortical Neurons”. During my presentation I fielded questions and received input from other scientists at the conference.

The second part of the meeting basically involved seeing as much as possible. This conference covers the cutting edge in research. It is a sample of the most advanced research conducted worldwide. There was such an abundance of poster presenters at the meeting that it took approximately 20 minutes just to walk straight across the room holding them all. That doesn’t even include walking through the aisles and seeing all the posters. It was also a great opportunity for networking, it gave you personal contact as you met with people face to face.

Q: What stands out to you the most from this experience?

I really enjoyed learning about the cutting edge research. You can tell which research is popular and new by the crowd surrounding it and I noticed that a BU poster being presented on optic genetics always had a mass of people surrounding it throughout the conference. Some of the best new research is right here on our own campus. All the vendors at the conference was another exciting opportunity to learn about new products that could potentially help my research. The new technology presented by vendors can provide new methods for investigation, and many of the new inventions have reduced in size. For example, this one machine, which takes up about the same floor space as a washer and dryer, has now been reduced to approximately the size of a small microwave. This is something I can bring back to the lab at BU and inform the people here of better methods for conducting research.

Q: How has this shaped your current research?

Presenting my poster and observing the other posters has really formed the direction of my research, especially what not to do. It has helped me understand why the novel studies have the most impact. It is guiding the direction of my research as it has given me new ideas. I found it extremely helpful to hear others comments on the posters, to hear their own experiences and useful tips they offered.

Q: What program are you in and why did you choose this program?

I originally started as a lab tech in the department of biophysics. As I became familiar with this lab and visited labs at other institutions, I realized that the Pharmacology department at BU was the best department for my interests in neuroscience and pharmacology. I just liked what this lab had going on and the structure of the program. There was the right balance of academics and research.

Q: Can you tell us more about your research here at BUSM?

 

 Pregnenolone sulfate (PS) is a neuroactive steroid that enhances NMDAR mediated synaptic transmission, augments LTP in hippocampal slices, and acts as a cognitive enhancer in impaired animals. This is important because of its possible role in synaptic plasticity, memory formation, and neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia. To test that PS induces an upregulation of NMDARs at the surface of cortical neurons we exposed cultured rat neurons to 100uM PS for 10 minutes. We observed that PS is sufficient to induce increases in intracellular calcium in the absence of extracellular calcium.

 

Q: So when you aren’t in the lab, what other activities are you involved in?

 

I like to hang out with friends when I can. I read a lot or just spend time at home with my wife. We’ve been married for 2 years now and we still like to go out to eat together and find new places to dine in Boston. We’ve been to a wide variety of restaurants in Boston. It’s a great city for excellent varied dining as well as for receiving a higher education.

Q: Any advice for other prospective students?

Go to the Society for Neuroscience meeting. It is a great way to see a wide variety of research as well as a great way to get more information on how to do research. Also, go as early in your Ph.D. career as possible and see what interests you. You don’t have to be a presenter to go.

Take the advice from Conor and try to attend national and international meetings.  It is a great way to meet scientists from all over the world and get lots of exposure. You can learn more about travel grants by visiting the website https://www.bumc.bu.edu/gms/phd/professionaldevelopment/travel-awards/