Think back to the first time you had to present your heart and soul (or at least life's work) to a group of colleagues who were ready to ask questions you had no way of answering and scrutinizing every detail. This can be the experience of presenting at your first poster session.

I know I experienced something similar (well, not quite THAT bad, but pretty close) at last January's 13th Annual UBRP Conference. I had spent months on my project and at least a few weeks preparing my poster. I was worried my work wouldn't live up to that of my fellow presenters. I was worried I wouldn't be dressed nice enough, or that I would be dressed too nice. I was pretty much worried about the whole notion of standing there like a "sitting duck," just waiting for some professor to come by and ask some question I could not answer but should have been able to, and feeling like a fool.

And I have to say, that happened many a time during my hour-long stint in front of my poster detailing the basics of making mutant worms. (Actually, the official title of my poster was "Genome Based RNA Interference Screen to Identify Endocytotic Proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans," but I basically just made mutant worms.) However, once I got through the initial nerves of presenting and got through my speech a few times, I started to get comfortable and enjoyed telling others about what I had worked so hard to accomplish. This initial experience has made me more comfortable in the realm of poster sessions, lab meetings, and even reading journal articles.

All of these experiences came in handy at the most recent mini UBRP poster session, which took place on August 2, 2002. I was able to walk up to other students, review their posters, ask them questions about their work, and actually understand what they were telling me about. Understanding that many of them were nervous, I tried to crack jokes or just ask questions about life in the lab, rather than technical questions.

From "Vanillin Based Oligimers" to "Functional Identification of Neurons by Neuropeptide/RFP Fusion Proteins" to "Expression of Cyclin D1 in Chicken DT40Frt45 cells with an upstream regulator HS1234," this poster session provided an array of topics and interests that spanned the sciences. It truly was a great learning experience and provided me with the opportunity to meet other UBRPers who knew what it was like to be a "sitting duck" and love it. I canıt wait until this year's conference (January 25, 2003) so I can make a go at a whole new poster and a whole new audience. Not to mention the great food! "Gotta" love the food.

Sarah Knuth, UBRPer in Dr. Johnny Fares' lab, Molecular & Cellular Biology