Fish out of water at the PSM Annual Convention

After five long years, I had the opportunity (and the boss' permission) to attend the Philippine Society for Microbiology 38th Annual Convention at the Hyatt Casino and Hotel in Manila. In the membership update form, there was a portion where members had to justify their absence in the conventions that they've missed; so I listed my reasons down...

2005, I attended the American Association of Cereal Chemists Intl (AACC) annual meeting
2006, I was in Uni
2007, I attended the International Network for Quality Rice workshop
2008, I attended the STARCH conference and the AACC annual meeting

After writing all these down, I realised how long I've been absent; the last microbiology meeting I had attended was the symposium held at the De La Salle University in 2007. Back then, I was starting to feel out of place in the midst of all the microbiologists because I couldn't understand the terminologies anymore. Since getting immersed into my post-grad research topic, my scientific vocabulary gradually shifted from microbiology and immunology, to biochemistry and cereal science.

When the plenary session of this year's convention started, I felt like fish out of water. Bacteriocins, cell-mediated immunity, lactic acid bacteria... these were the terms I was quite comfortable using while majoring in Microbiology back in college. Not anymore, though. While listening to the talks, what my current supervisor had said (when I was struggling to understand what a SNP chip is**) came back to me: just accept that I'm a cereal chemist now. True, the convention's topics being discussed are no longer as relevant to my current work as when I was still in the food manufacturing industry. 

Nevertheless, even though I understood almost zilch (because it takes time to shift my mind back to microbiology) of what were presented earlier today, I enjoyed being there because it was nice to catch up with friends and former professors, and get updated with where the trends in Microbiology lead in the Philippines. It appears that research is focusing on food and medical microbiology, based on the topics in the plenary session and the keynote address (by Dr Jaime Montoya, of the Philippine General Hospital). I can't wait for tomorrow's talks; hopefully, there would be more talks on structural characterisation, or biochemistry.

** SNP chip: some high-tech way of characterising an organism genotypically 

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