GOSH BRC Junior Faculty Conference and Training Support Fund - Sonia García-Ruiz

Current Position: PhD student

Event/conference: European Human Genetics Conference Virtual Conference

Presenting: PhD results

Date: 28th-31st August 2021

Funding requested: £120

What did you present at the conference (including the title)?

I presented part of the results I had obtained during the first two years of my PhD program. The talk was pre-recorded and had a duration of 10 minutes plus 5 final minutes dedicated to live Q&A from the audience. The talk was titled: “Splicing noise is detectable across human tissues and modelling its characteristics is likely to improve the detection of pathogenic splicing within patient-derived samples”.

What were the main benefits/learnings from the conference?

One of the main benefits I obtained from the conference was to know that my research was interesting enough to the committee reviewing submitted abstracts, as they assigned me an oral presentation. Obtaining that recognition was really encouraging to me and it gave me the motivation to start working in the draft of a future manuscript. Another benefit is that it provided me with the opportunity to keep practising different soft skills, such as my presentation skills, and being able to face different live, unprepared questions from a wide audience.

How did attending the conference benefit your career development?

It helped me to learn more about the different companies and recruiters that usually attend to these types of conferences. Although this year the ESHG was held completely virtual, conferences like this might be a great opportunity for networking and meeting new people that can help during our future job search.

Did you learn any tips or best practice about how to make the most of virtual attendance at a conference?

Before submitting the talk to any conference, I would recommend presenting it to different people or collaborators, as their input might be very valuable to improve any presentation.