Muscle Biology Conference

The Muscle conference was very informative. I got to present my poster about differences among nuclei that are all in the same cell. I got some good feedback on experiments that people would like to see and some people even shared observations of differences that they have seen.
The conference itself was jam packed with science. Whoever made the schedule had arranged for the meeting to go from 8am to 10pm everyday with an hour booked in for each meal. I wasn't expecting people to stay very engaged for the later sessions with such long days, but it turned out that the evening poster sessions were very very busy. People even sat around afterwards in the lobby continuing conversations.
Some of the coolest parts of the conference were the work presented on treatments for different muscle disorders and tissue regeneration. One presentation was on the use of a cold medication to treat a type of myopathy that had been completely refractory to treatment. The scientist showed videos of the patients in wheel chairs before treatment and walking up stairs after 6-12 months of treatment. It was very impressive and a good example of how understanding biochemical pathways can lead to better interventions. Another interesting one was about how muscle uses very low levels of CO in signalling kind of like NO signalling. Muscular Dystrophy mice responded well to treatment with extremely low CO levels. As you can imagine there was some hearty discussion about this presentation. There was a poster from a group out at Stanford who are using a 3D printer to print extracellular matrix in the shape of muscles and seed these shapes with muscle, blood vessel, and connective tissue stem cells. They have been successful in replacing whole muscles in mice and even have pretty good innervation if coupled with physical therapy (yes, just sit there and imagine mouse PT for a moment). It is a long way from human scale but encouraging progress.
While at the conference I got to talk with a few researchers I would be interested in working with when I finish my degree. They were all very friendly and gave me some good advice on my project.