Attended a pre-conference workshop today from morning till evening and fed every 2 hours or so. Like the previous workshop where Prof John F. Leslie was invited, this one isn't going to be ordinary. We're honoured to have Prof Alexander Steinbüchel, Drs. Hideki Abe and Tadahisa Iwata. Man, big people, both status and stature, the latter especially true for Prof Steinbüchel.
Our guest from Westfälische Wilhelms-University, Münster, start off with the theme of the workshop and the conference: Bio-based polymers. Off he went about polymers. Fermenters. So far so good. Then came cyanophycin, KDPG aldolase-addiction system, and biorefineries.
Our Japanese speakers then dished out copoly(ester-amide)s, end-capped poly(L-lactide), and X-ray diffraction using their synchrotron, the SPring-8.
Wham! There I was, digesting bit by bit and making sense of every piece of information; not that their heavily-accented English helped. At the end of it, I have to give it to these men. Bright people living at the edge; the cutting edge technology. Imagine what the guys and gals in their laboratory could do. And here we have people showing off how good their research is.
I left that place enriched. Knowing that if I put my brain to good use (am doing that daily), nothing is impossible. New doors could always be open; could being the operative word here. If polyhydroxyalkanoates are but drops of water in the ocean, then chemosynthesis of new polymers would certainly paint a different picture for the environment.
Leaving that place also meant that I learned something: that is to be confident of what I'm pursuing. Start low but don't waste time. And make sure it's good science. I will remember to laugh at he or she who mocks the work of "lesser" beings, since if we're in this together how good can one be compared to the others. One thing is, I still can't see the rationale for all the competition happening right now in all possible directions.
Oh why, my fellow [still-a-lot-of-catching-up-to-do] researchers? Why?
Ah, knowledge is fulfilling and it gives me a good feeling.
Our guest from Westfälische Wilhelms-University, Münster, start off with the theme of the workshop and the conference: Bio-based polymers. Off he went about polymers. Fermenters. So far so good. Then came cyanophycin, KDPG aldolase-addiction system, and biorefineries.
Our Japanese speakers then dished out copoly(ester-amide)s, end-capped poly(L-lactide), and X-ray diffraction using their synchrotron, the SPring-8.
Wham! There I was, digesting bit by bit and making sense of every piece of information; not that their heavily-accented English helped. At the end of it, I have to give it to these men. Bright people living at the edge; the cutting edge technology. Imagine what the guys and gals in their laboratory could do. And here we have people showing off how good their research is.
I left that place enriched. Knowing that if I put my brain to good use (am doing that daily), nothing is impossible. New doors could always be open; could being the operative word here. If polyhydroxyalkanoates are but drops of water in the ocean, then chemosynthesis of new polymers would certainly paint a different picture for the environment.
Leaving that place also meant that I learned something: that is to be confident of what I'm pursuing. Start low but don't waste time. And make sure it's good science. I will remember to laugh at he or she who mocks the work of "lesser" beings, since if we're in this together how good can one be compared to the others. One thing is, I still can't see the rationale for all the competition happening right now in all possible directions.
Oh why, my fellow [still-a-lot-of-catching-up-to-do] researchers? Why?
Ah, knowledge is fulfilling and it gives me a good feeling.
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