O is for outing

 Conference day 4: 

A few pictures from by my hotel. 

Across the river you can see high rises with trees and plants on top: 

Today I missed a session of the conference to go in a little later, taking the opportunity to go on a CityCat. These ferry's run every 15 mins or so and cost only 50 cents, for that you can go ~45 mins down river. 

We went about 20-30 mins down river and then turned back to get tot the conference for 11am. You can see all the green trees and plants amongst and on the buildings. 

At lunch time we went for a little walk to grab an ice cream and found this guys waiting around to steal food left unattended. 

Later we took another little break to go on the big wheel (about £12 for 12 mins). 

The building in the middle of the picture is with the darkened glass is the conference centre. 

upriver

downriver

Next we went to the casino Sky Deck which is free, it's the building at the end of the bridge in this photo. 

From the top of there: 

There are even small trees on top!

Lots of interesting science between the outings too. Updates on some clinical trials to prevent type 1 diabetes or improve glucose tolerance for those who are already diagnosed. Work on pancreata donated by organ donors, showing how the pancreas develops in people with type 1. Lab techniques make it possible to identify the different cells, count them, even find out what proteins they are making. Possibly the best part was pancreas slices (sections of recently donated pancreas) that are kept alive to allow scientists to understand how the immune cells damage the pancreas. They even had videos of immune cells destroying the insulin making cells in these sections over 16 hours. Really cutting edge work that is only made possible by the gracious gift of these organs by donors and their families. 

We also had a debate, which is usually one of the highlights of this conference, with a lot of humour. We finished at around 6pm with time for a properly timed diner and time to head back to the hotel to pack. 

N is for Nine

Conference day 3. This morning I woke up from a dream where I was drowning at about 5:30 am. Was a bit hard to fall back to sleep after that. I spent the morning getting up and finishing my second talk for the day, mainly by prettifying it with pointless images (no graphs in this talk). It turns out both of my talks are about nine minutes, I was aiming for eight, but close enough!

Unfortunately by the time I'd done that and run through what I needed to say I missed the first session so I headed over to the conference venue for the second session starting at 9:10 and my first speaking engagement of the day. 

This did afford the opportunity to get a better photo of the Brisbane sign. 

Talk number 1: 

Some good interest in the first talk and lots of nice comments afterwards over morning tea. 

The next session was another interesting one, an excellent talk about type 1 diabetes in Japan, another great talk about diabetes in Australian Aboriginals, and finally a talk from one of our collaborators on diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa. All highlighting the importance of understanding type 1 diabetes in ethnicities other than Caucasian (the ethnicity represented in probably 95% plus of all the data collected so far). 

After lunch it was time for my second talk. Incidentally the conference food is really yummy. Today we had a selection of 4 cakes for dessert, I restrained myself to try 3; an espresso brownie so rich it was like solidified chocolate butter, an apricot pastry, and a vanilla and chocolate tart - which turned out to be a bit plain. 

Talk number 2: 

This is the talk that contributes to the cost of my conference travel. As part of the Islet Autoantibody Standardization Program committee. We had 50 mins scheduled, started 5 mins early and over ran by only 10 mins, which for us is pretty good! Antibodies are proteins which recognise different patterns, this way they can recognise specific proteins or sugars. They can then take in dangerous proteins or sugars (i.e. ones from bacteria or viruses) and show them to T-cells, to make the T-cells switch on their killing activity. In type 1 diabetes they get confused and think the proteins from the insulin producing cells are dangerous. 

Next were some B-cell talks (B-cells are the ones that make the antibodies). Again, really nicely explained and presented to a relatively small audience as a lot of people had skipped the afternoon (was it something I said? 😂)

The day ended with a Poster Session. An hour and a half of staring awkwardly at A0 posters sandwiched between too close poster boards, trying to avoid all the people with back-packs blocking the route through. Ending with everyone shouting as the noisy level increases😂

Then out with colleagues again, this time for Mexican. 

Now it's time for a well deserved sleep. 

M is for Marvelous

Conference day two. Today is the day I have to upload my talks to the conference portal. I was planning to do some work on them before the conference started but somehow by the time I got up, had a shower, and ironed my shirts, it was time to head out for breakfast and the Plenary Lecture starting at 8:30am. 

Today was 'T-cell' day, it's a bit of a shame the microbiota didn't land on the 'M' day, but that's life. Put simply T-cells are the cells of the immune system that do the killing in type 1 diabetes, all the other cells of the immune system 'just' help them do it. 

I spent most of today trying to finish my talks whilst listening in for anything particularly interesting. Such as, the harmonisation of pancreas specific immune cell assays between laboratories (measuring the cells that home to the insulin producing cells specifically). 

By the end of the day I had succeeded in uploading one talk to the conference portal, with one more to go. 

That did mean I could enjoy the Rising Star Award Session, all early career researchers presenting their work, with an award of travel money, certificate, and a conference dinner ticket! These were nice, novel, well explained presentations. 

This evening I only had to stay at the conference centre to talk with my committee till 7:15pm. Then we found my other colleagues for some food. 

Back to the hotel room and practice my finished talk for tomorrow...

L is for Lick...

 The slow posting is because on Monday (letter L day) my conference started. L could also stand for long day, though not as long as the rest of the week. Today we started at 10am with registration and 11am for the Welcome. 

Today was mainly about the early life origins of type 1 diabetes, mainly microbiota. The most memorable talk, the sharing of gut bacterial strains between infants and their families. Obviously, babies start of with strong sharing of strains with their Mum's, persisting as long as they are breast fed. However then their strains start to shift towards their older siblings, it's not clear why, possibly because their guts have a more similar bacterial niche (environment), such as a more similar diet. Then children start nursery and their bacterial strains shift again to shared strains with their peers. Ick!

We finished the conference about 5:30pm but I was at the conference venue until 9pm working with my committee on our presentations for Wednesday. 

We left to find food but all the restaurants kitchens were closing so eventually we ended up in the central shopping area having Mc Donald's at 10pm. Raspberry Fanta - yum! 

K is for KOALA, KOALA, KOALA 🐨 (lots of videos!)

Finally the day has come. It's Koala day 🐨

I started the day with breakfast in the hotel and a trip around the corner to Hillsong Brisbane City. This campus is an old movie theatre. It was good to worship God with a few hundred (?) others. The music was so loud 🤣 two keyboards, drums, 3 guitars and four singers. Good mix of songs I knew and modern songs that had such obvious chord progressions I could sing them without ever hearing them before 👍🏼😁.  The sermon was from the Sydney Hills campus, being sent across Australia this Sunday. 

I then made my way across the river for the coach to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. 

I took 235 photos/videos - I have edited these down 😅

I saw Koalas, Kangaroos, Platypus, Echidna, Tasmanian Devil, and a Quokka. 

Koalas

What do Koalas do? 

They sleep...

They Eat

What's better than one Koala eating? 

Three Koalas eating. 

They also jump!

Kangaroos (and Wallabies)

You could feed them and pet them (though I let them be as I did not feel the need). 

Tree Kangaroo

Platypus

The platypuses were in a dark room and one was sleeping. But, I did manage to get a few seconds of video - slowed down. 

See the little white eye lids? 

Echidna

I almost missed the Echidna as I was looking for Wombats. 

The little pink blur in the photos is it's tongue! The video is clearer

Look at him amble!

Tasmanian Devil

Quokka

When I first found the Quokka (Quincy) he was having a nap, which was cute.

But when I went back later he was up and about. 

Then he heard his keeper and hopped over!

Some other bits and bobs

Dingo

Salt water crocodile

Me and my new little friend (Piney)

All in all a really lovely day!