Interviews
The following interviews were recorded with participants during the Conference.
Alf Månsson
School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences, University of Kalmar, Kalmar, Sweden
“My field of interest is basically molecular maltose and focusing on myosin, I am very much interested in combining myosin maltose from muscle to with nanostructures to possibly use them for cargo transportation in nanotechnology – that is one line of research. Another line of interest is the possibility of developing new biophysical assay systems, so that you can position the maltose in oriented ways, and thereby study cooperative interactions between the two heads of myosin II. And the third thing is that I’ve started to become generally interested in certain protein interactions and to understand more about it.
It is my first time in Hungary, and it has been very nice so far. I was actually invited here by Miklos Kellermayer. As to the conference, I think it has been very nice and well organised, for the sessions and as well for the social parts, so I’ve been very pleased.”
Carol Deutsch
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
“My field of interest and work is physiology of ion channels, that means their biophysics and how they work, how the move. And also how they’re made and are put together. So I would say the biogenesis and function of ion channels, specifically voltage gated potassium channels. Initially I heard of this conference from colleagues, so I was invited to speak here. It’s my first time attending the Molecular Recognition Conference, it is my first time in Pécs, but it’s not my first time to Hungary. I have been here many many years ago, maybe fifteen years ago.
The country is beautiful, architecturally I love it. Also the culture and history of Hungary are extremely interesting. And the conference… I’m very impressed with the organisation of the conference, actually, it works beautifully, and everybody is very thoughtful, they’ve organised with very good speakers and made the conference extremely accessible to everybody – there is no ambiguity of where to go or what to do or how to communicate. Everything is made for an easy flow of information.
In terms of the topics I think it is excellent, because there has been a tremendous diversity of talks. We heard of different fields, and of a variety of techniques and approaches from very biophysical topics to more biochemical. It’s very easy for large conferences to have a variety, but when you have a small one, it’s difficult to keep the whole audience interested and still have diversity.
What would I change? I have to think about that… I’m not sure what I would change. What I like now is that there is a mixture of very mature scientists and very young scientists. It’s been good that there have been some young presenters as well as professors. I think the only thing is that I would encourage more time for the posters and talking about them. So I would expand the participation and exposure of the students and maybe encourage students to travel from Pécs. Also it would be good if the students would participate more actively in the questioning.
If I can I will participate next year too, the only thing is that there are plenty of conferences all around the world, but if I can, I will!”
Michael Geeves
Department of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom
“I feel like this conference is a very friendly and a very good meeting. I was here three years ago as well, and I would like to see Hungary more as well, so far I have not had the chance for that. I’ll stay for a few ore days to visit museums in Pécs as well as the cathedral.
As to the conference itself, the presentations have been very good and of high quality. They all have been very different, this morning we had a talk about bee pheromones, which was very interesting because it’s very different. The poster section was good too, I was part of the Committee awarding the prizes.”
Ingolf Lamprecht
Institute for Biology, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
“It is the first time I am participating. My field of interest is biophysics, usually calorimetry of all living systems, from insects or microorganisms up to very complex ecological organisms and systems like beehives or ant hives. Besides, thermogenic plants, the flowers of which warm up during blooming to attract pollinators.
I heard of the conference because I know Dénes Lőrinczy very well and he invited me to come to this conference. Organisation, programme and localization of the conference has been excellent, it’s a pleasure to be in Pécs. It is the first time for me, and I am impressed by the countryside, by the town, by this Hotel building. This is the old style I really love. Temperatures could be a little bit lower, 36C yesterday was a bit too much. The player in the evening yesterday was beautiful. I just arrived from Italy, and this is here more Italian in Pécs than Italy is.
I haven’t travelled much in Hungary, I have only been one time at the Balaton at a conference, and I visited the porcelain factory at Herend. Before going back to Berlin now I will take one day to see a bit of Budapest, as an appetizer, and then to come back and make a really long visit to Budapest.
As to things that next year could be done differently… well, I think, don’t change anything, all was excellent, you could only change it to the worse! Next year depends a bit on the possibilities, because the field is a bit far from my interests, so I don’t understand all that has been told about, since I’m a biophysicist and not a biochemist.”
Alexander Demchenko
Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine
“My name is Alexander Demchenko, and I was collaborator and personal friend of Béla Somogyi for many years. We started with our work together about twenty years ago, when he was in Debrecen and I was in Kiev, and we were both interested in new fluorescent dyes for protein research and for the research of membranes. We started this work and after we discussed different ideas about that, but after he went his own way. He was mostly interested in protein dynamics and applications of fluorescent probes that provide response in Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer. And I went a different way, I concentrated on finding the best dyes to provide a response due to intermolecular interactions. … What is particularly interesting and important about this dyes is that because of a photochemical reaction they produce two fluorescent bands of different colours and intermolecular interactions change the intensity of these two colours. You can apply this principle in microscopy and you will see the change of fluorescent parameters of cellular membranes. And also for instance in the intermolecular interactions between the proteins, you may label one of the proteins and you will see the effect of the change of colour in the interactions. This technique is used world wide now.
I’ve been in Pécs before, in the previous meetings on molecular recognition. I received invitation from Béla, and I could come together with my graduate students. This time I came by myself.
It is a small conference and usually small conferences have the good and the bad sides. The good is to find people you want to meet, and there is enough time to discuss many things. Bad is the fact that you can never be fully satisfied with the program because not everyone you would like to meet can be there.
About changes… maybe it would be better to enlarge the conference. Enlarge the number of participants up to 200. The program may be the same, may be focused more on molecular recognition, as now there are some presentations that are not directly related to this topic. The conference is mainly focused on the topic of muscle proteins, but maybe it could be a bit broader, to cover the wide subject of molecular recognition.”
Siegfried Labeit
Medical Faculty Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
“It is my first time in Pécs and Hungary – it is a marvellous city and meeting! We drove four days ago via Budapest and Balaton to Pécs. Pécs is actually my favourite Hungarian town, I prefer Pécs to Budapest.
The conference itself is an ideal platform to meet colleagues from my field and form discussions, it is very well organised. Today we had several really nice presentations and it is impossible to favour one over the other – I liked all of them, the first was maybe the most integrated one but I they were all very good. I heard from this conference from colleagues, like from EMBL, they spread by rumour that this conference is a nice occasion to meet colleagues in the field of muscle biomechanics. One of our connections was via Miklos Kellermayer, who was a collaborator of mine.
I came with my family, and we have to go home tomorrow. Unfortunately I have to be back at work on Monday morning.”
