Shariful Islam's Conference Summary

     Shariful Islam
     Ph.D. Student
     Cancer Biology GIDP

     Conference Summary
     American Association for Cancer Research
     Washington D.C.

I am honored to be selected for H.E. Carter travel award for Spring 2017. This award provided me the opportunity to attend AACR Annual meeting 2017 which taken place in Washington, D.C. one of the most expensive place in USA. At first the hotel rent in D.C. scared me but this award assured my peace in mind.

AACR annual meeting is a huge one with over 20,000 scientists, clinicians, researchers, students and exhibitors from all parts of the world, which makes it really diverse. I never have been participating such a gigantic meeting before. It’s a unique opportunity to meet so many people in a single place and I was lucky enough to talk Dr Louis M. Staudt who is one of the top gurus in lymphoma biology, which I am studying for my PhD thesis. Besides I was able to attend several talks and posters and discuss with graduate students, postdocs and PIs. I myself presented my poster on 4th day of the conference. Several people visited my poster and asked me several questions and some of them also came with some nice ideas that I haven’t thought before and I am planning to implements those idea very soon.

On the very first day there was a career fair, I got opportunity to meet several people from industries and to know about what kind of opportunity they have for us. Being international I had some specific questions for job requirements, which clarify some of my questions that I am waiting hear for a long time.

I was also able to meet one of my friends who are currently working as a postdoc in NCI and also visit his lab in NCI, which I think a great opportunity to see a place where you dream to work.

Besides conference I was also able to visit US Capitol, Washington Monument and Lincoln memorial to end my trip to Washington, D.C.