The tenth biennial meeting of the International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology convened in La Jolla, California, near San Diego. The view from the hotel room included a lawn and golf course, both of which looked almost unnaturally green in comparison to the more muted tones of Tucson, and the blue-gray ocean, a few miles in the distance. I had little time to enjoy the view, however, since the three days of the conference were packed with interesting presentations and panel discussions.

The first full day of the conference had already begun by the time most students and I filtered into their earliest morning class. The early start seemed not to matter once the presentations began, as eleven scientists from around the world described different methods for recruiting cells from the blood, bone marrow, and other tissue. Once characterized and with a little prodding from their environment, those stem cells may be the key components to repairing or building an entirely new cardiovascular system.

The second session covered the critical role of specific and properly timed molecules on the development of working blood vessels, as well as some of the current replacements for human blood vessels and their efficacy. Despite the fact that much is still unknown and some problems still persist, it was encouraging to hear that different replacements have kept some patients alive longer than ten years.

The long ended with a poster session where I, along with about sixty other students and researchers, explained the results of our experiments and took suggestions as to further research from the circulating scientists, medical doctors, company representatives, and other students. It was intimidating to recognize the person who had organized the session just a few hours before as the person standing in front of me asking specific questions about experiments and cell types, but the insight I gained into their work and the helpful suggestions I received more than made up for a little bit of nervousness.

The next day, there were more presentations on the specific molecular markers that define a properly functioning heart valve or blood vessel cell. Simple differences, like type of flow, tension on the underlying tissue, or even the type of surrounding tissue, have been found to change the way a cell responds to a given stimulus, adding new considerations to experiments and clinical solutions to cardiovascular problems. To ensure the conference attendees did not become too depressed contemplating the complex problems that still face them, the society hosted a dinner at the amazing Birch Aquarium, and rewarded several new scientists for the work they presented at the conference.

The third and final day of the conference provided valuable information on different relationships between scientists and businesses. Speakers described the difficulties of and processes for turning an idea into a marketable product at a new or established company, as well as describing how companies of different size choose to interact with one another to meet business demands.

Much more was discussed during the conference than could possibly be described in one article, but the information I learned during the official conference sessions was only half of the experience. I saw, heard, and even spoke to some scientists whose names I recognized from scientific papers, an experience that was a little bit like meeting a famous author. The excitement of the society members as a whole and the progress of each researcher allowed me to see that my contribution to science in general was important and related to the research of many others.

Heidi Hofer, UBRPer in Dr. Stuart Williams’s lab, Biomedical Engineering