Oh, what a conference!
Early October, back in twenty-one
What a very special time for me,
As I remember, what a conference!

This year’s ASIP Annual Meeting, known as PISA (that’s ASIP backwards!) – Pathobiology for Investigators, Students, and Academicians – was held virtually from October 5-7 2021. This year’s PISA was particularly special as it was dedicated to Young Investigators (YIs) with a stellar line-up of 42 talks from YIs with each session headlined by a keynote presentation from an esteemed senior ASIP member. Details of the virtual program can be found here: https://pisa21.asip.org/virtual-program/virtual-program/
The night before the meeting, we held the ASIP Trainee Hangout which was a ton of fun! Hosted by Alexander Sougiannis, Michele Alves and yours truly! The theme was “Happy Hour” and as such, we all came with our fun drinks in hand and caught up on life since the last ASIP Trainee Hangout and discussed how to make the most of the PISA Meeting ahead.
The meeting kicked off with the Cancer Pathobiology and Neuropathology session where Dr. Diane Bielenberg from Boston Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School gave the Isaiah J. Fidler Memorial Keynote Lecture. It was so inspiring to hear about the great experiences and fond memories that Dr. Bielenberg shared with her PhD advisor. The YI talks that followed were fantastic and generated great discussion amongst the virtual audience.
While the meeting was occurring virtually, another stream of content was being posted live on Twitter by conference attendees and the ASIP team. Check out all these posts via the Twitter hashtag #PISA2021 and account tag @ASIPath. A big tip for conference attendees is to get active on Twitter and post about your conference experiences using the official conference hashtag and tagging the conference organizers. For the upcoming Experimental Biology meeting in 2022, you can start preparing by following @ExpBio and tagging #ExpBio
A huge congratulations to all the PISA Awardees, both postdoctoral and predoctoral researchers, for their outstanding research! More details here: https://pisa21.asip.org/awards/outstanding-research-award-recipients/
While virtual meetings have their perks, I am definitely looking forward to in-person meetings next year, especially #ExpBio! I can’t wait to meet everyone that I have gotten to know so well virtually, in-person! Don’t forget to submit your abstracts by November 30th! More details here: https://asippathways.com/2021/11/04/abstract-and-registration-site-for-asip2022-at-expbio-is/
See you in Philly!
Blog post by Daisy Y. Shu @eyedaisyshu on Twitter/Instagram