Notes on MicroCirc2012 by BMS President

A series of posts from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society and the US Microcirculatory Society.

BMS President Stuart Egginton's post-meeting blog:

BMS President Stuart Egginton

I would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all whose strenuous efforts ensured that this year’s joint meeting between the BMS and MCS was such a success. In particular, Chris Garland and his team are to be congratulated on organising an excellent scientific programme and great social events in such a lovely setting. 

It was very pleasing to see record numbers of attendees, posters and exhibitors – all very positive signs for the future of our discipline. We greatly appreciate the support of MCS officers in promoting closer links between our societies, and it was highly appropriate that we were able to celebrate adopting a common journal (with the enthusiastic support of both memberships) in this manner. 

A special issue of Microcirculation to celebrate this will appear shortly. Of course we can’t stand still, and many interesting discussions were had about possible ways forward and new ventures, and thanks to Donald Singer we had interviews with plenary lecturers posted on the web during the meeting (hopefully the first wave of an enhanced public image for the society). Watch this space for more news!

MicroCirc2012, Keble College: Oral and Poster Presentations

A series of posts from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Here is a report by BMS Committee member Carolyn Staton on the oral and poster presentations and awards at MicroCirc2012.

'MicroCirc2012 was a truly excellent conference, held at Keble College, Oxford from 4^th-6^th July.  It was organised by Chris Garland on behalf of The British Microcirculation Society and The Microcirculatory Society and ran incredibly smoothly, with most delegates staying in college and enjoying the facilities there, including two excellent dinners.

As well as the interesting and informative plenary and key note lectures from experts in the field of microcirculation there were 30 short oral communications, many of which were given by early career scientists including intercalating medics and PhD students. These oral communications were very well attended and each presentation was followed by a very lively discussion session which greatly added to the import of the conference, and the positive experience of all involved.  Early career scientists/clinicians were eligible for the best oral presentation award which was judged by a panel of experts from both societies and was awarded as follows:

Living Systems Best Oral Presentation award: Dr Andrew Salmon (University of Bristol). Altered endothelial glycocalyx links albuminuria and widespread vascular dysfunction.

The poster sessions of the conference were particularly lively and interactive, with 124 posters displayed over the three day period.  There was a great atmosphere in all poster sessions with people coming together to discuss numerous different aspects of the microcirculation; from angiogenesis, endothelial progenitor/stem cells, calcium channels, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and pregnancy to name just a few. Everyone was able to discuss their posters with experts in the field providing a great opportunity for the early career investigators to gain feedback on their research and to learn about other aspects of the microcirculation or diseases associated with it. As a reflection of these wonderful poster sessions, all posters from early career researchers were judged by experts from both societies and several prizes were awarded as follows:

BMS Poster Prize 1: Rhiannon Baggot (University of Wolverhampton, UK). VEGF-induced angiogenesis is negatively regulated by the plasma membrane calcium ATPase.

BMS Poster Prize 2: Sebastian Oltean (University of Bristol, UK). VEGF₁₆₅b slows diabetic nephropathy progression in type 1 diabetes rodent models.

Terence Ryan Best Clinical Poster: Augusto Montezano (Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Canada). Aldosterone-induces vascular pro-inflammatory and fibrotic effects through Nox1-dependent mechanisms independently of blood pressure changes.

Wiley Blackwell Poster Prize: Timea Beleznai (University of Oxford, UK).  Pressure-dependent role for TRPV4 channels in modulating spontaneous endothelial cell calcium events in rat cremasteric arterioles.

Moor Instruments Innovation in Technology Prize: James Bell (Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Exeter, UK). Structural Changes in Loaded Blood Vessels.

Congratulations to all who took part in both the oral and poster presentations for helping to make this a wonderful conference for all who attended. Thank you also to all judges for helping to award prizes to our excellent early career scientists.  We look forward to seeing you all at future BMS and associated conferences.'

Reflections of Professor Chris Garland on MicroCirc2012

A series of blogs from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, for which local organization was lead by Professor Chris Garland, on behalf the British Microcirculation Society (BMS) and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Chris Garland and Keynote speaker Kim Dora

Chris Garland is Professor of Vascular Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. Here are his reflections on the meeting and his role as principal local organizer of MicroCirc2012.

'It was a great relief to the organizers that the joint BMS/MCS meeting at Keble College proved to be a tremendous success; enjoyed scientifically and socially by all who attended. This of course reflected the fact attendance was fantastic, with 250 scientists and clinicians from 15 countries around the world making the trip to Oxford. However, the success also depended on the support of many of the world leaders in research in this area, particularly those who agreed to provide the Plenary and Keynote lectures that formed the basis of the scientific programme. Apart from defining the current state of research into the working of the microcirculation in health and disease, these provided, I am sure, inspiration to the many young scientists present. 

Carsten Thorndahl, DMT with Prof David Gutterman

Some of these speakers give more insight into their research in the video blogs on this website. All were outstanding, but I would highlight one Plenary Lecture, that given by David Gutterman from Wisconsin, as encapsulating what our research endeavours are all about. His DMT lecture described the crucial importance of fundamental scientific endeavour in informing and sign-posting the way forward to applied research in people. This balanced approach to research is the only way we will understand the complex cell mechanisms that drive the microcirculation and ensure it operates to keep us alive, and importantly what changes disrupt the way it works in disease. With so many people world-wide suffering from cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, and a wide range of other  serious diseases in which the microcirculation is implicated, from abnormal pregnancy, to inflammatory disorders, and cancer, there can be no doubt of the relevance and importance of this fundamental scientific area of research in the 21st century!' 

Further links

Award winners at Microcirc2012

British Microcirculation Society

The US Microcirculatory Society

Video discussion with Professor Steven Segal at MicroCirc2012

Video discussion with Professor Giovanni Mann at MicroCirc2012

Student views on MicroCirc2012

A series of posts from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Keble Conference Centre - 5th July, 2012

Here are the impressions of Bristol University undergraduate student Josephine Whitney who presented a poster at MicroCirc2012.

The BMS conference in Oxford was my first of hopefully many conferences that I will attend (undergraduate). It was a fantastic experience; not only were we fortunate enough to stay in Keble college itself, but were privileged enough to see Investigators' presentations of their most recent work and novel findings. 

It was a great opportunity to meet similar people in the field from all over the world. My partner and I presented our first poster which wasn't as daunting as we'd anticipated as everyone was so friendly. I hope to return next year to see how everyone's research has progressed!
  

Steven Segal discusses the microcirculation at MicroCirc2012

A series of posts from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Keble Conference Centre - 5th July, 2012

Views expressed in these posts and videos are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BMS or the Microcirculatory Society. 


In this vodcast, University of Missouri-Columbia Professor Steven Segal is in discussion with Professor Donald Singer, University of Warwick, on the background to this joint UK-US organised Conference and some of the main themes in Professor Segal's  Conference Keynote Lecture on the microcirculation.  Professor Segal also discusses why it is important to study the microcirculation, microcirculatory research as a career, and his perspectives on some key challenges for current researchers on the microcirculation.

Professor Steven Segal at Conference dinner

Click here to  watch video discussion with Professor Segal. 

Click here to see more about Professor Segal

Giovanni Mann discussing vascular changes in abnormal pregnancy at MicroCirc2102

A series of posts from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society (BMS) and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Views expressed in these posts and videos are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BMS. 

Giovanni Mann at Keble for MicroCirc2012

In this vodcast, King's College London's Professor Giovanni Mann is in discussion with Professor Donald Singer, University of Warwick, on background to this joint UK-US organised Conference and some of the main themes in Professor Mann's  Conference Keynote Lecture on the impact of abnormal pregnancy on the fetal circulation.  

BMS President Stuart Egginton with Giovanni Mann

Watch video of Prof Giovanni Mann

Views from MicroCirc2012

More blogs from delegates at MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Views expressed in these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BMS. 


 Here are the impressions of Karen Stokes, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Molecular & Cellular Physiology & Center for Molecular and Tumor Virology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, USA:

 'The meeting is nearly over and has been a great success by all accounts- the science, the interactions and the socializing! As someone who does a lot of intravital microscopy in the intact microcirculation, I have had the great fortune to be able to start taking advantage of spinning disk intravital microscopy techniques, and this has revealed cell behaviour (exciting!) and problems (not so much!) that I had not imagined before…..but then I see the incredible work by many being done in isolated vessels and am reminded of the limitations that remain in dissecting out mechanisms in vivo, and the importance of multiple complementary approaches and collaborations that are prevalent in our field and are a positive sign for the future advancement of our knowledge. Thank you to the organizers-an excellent job….I hope you get a bit of sunshine for your post-conference weekend!'

MicroCirc12 - delegate perspectives

A series of blogs from the MicroCirc2012 conference at Keble College Oxford, 4-6 July, co-organized by the British Microcirculation Society (BMS) and the US Microcirculatory Society.

Views expressed in these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BMS 

Here are the impressions of Martin Leahy, Professor of Applied Physics at the National University of Ireland in Galway.

'How wonderful to be back in Oxford after 15 years and to celebrate Independence Day with our American friends. I wonder if the founders of the Microcirculation Societies in the 50s and 60s (I see Terence Ryan and David Lewis wandering about Oxford – they look like they’ve been here before!) expected that the 2012 meeting would be dominated by basic cell or at least ex vivo studies of growth factors and cell signalling. 

Martin Leahy at Day 3 poster session

Of course we don’t have to care about the real world to do good science and good science does not have to have any immediate impact on, say, patient outcome. Nonetheless, the macro view which we might read in the history books seems to be all about in vivo imaging and quantification. Malpighi, with the help of a novel high NA lens was the first to see and describe the microcirculation. 

Closer to our own time, the microcirculation meetings and publications mentioning ‘microcirculation’ really took off with easy access to videomicroscopy facilitated by developments in TV video recording. Physics has delivered macrocirculation imaging which underpins much of modern cardiovascular interventional success. Recently, several 3D and 4D (time) have become available, including photoacoustics and cmOCT. 

There is a great line up of presenters and a good attendance of 250 from around the globe. If half the audience were working in vivo (ideally in humans), I think there would be even greater excitement and discussions which were regularly challenging to the point of discomfort. Rather than excluding half of the current audience perhaps the chairs could look to recruit a couple of hundred microcirculation enthusiasts outside the basic community. The funders will eventually want us to show clinical impact. Those who have the privilege of seeing Hunt’s ‘Light of the World’ in the College Chapel may ponder which community is inspired by the light of conscience and which by the light of salvation. 

Finally, I guess the question we physicists would ask the microcirculation community is ‘When will microcirculation imaging and quantification be routinely used in the clinic?’'