British Yeast Group (BYG) Meeting 2016

The British Yeast Group (BYG) Meeting 2016 was held in Swansea between the 29th June and 1st July 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Cytochrome P450 Biodiversity at the Swansea University Medical School and organised by Professor Steve Kelly, Professor Diane Kelly, Dr Josie Parker and Dr Claire Price.

The meeting series started in 1977 and has been an annual event since 1980. The meetings focus on a group of popular research eukaryotic microorganisms including S. cerevisiae, S. pombe and related medically important fungi e.g. Candida and Aspergillus species. The programme (which can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/byg16swansea/programme) was a rich variety of talks from invited speakers, and those chosen from submitted abstracts. The poster session on the first day of the meeting was a great mix of science and celebration, with beer provided by Mumbles Brewery, a brewery from the local Swansea area. The meeting dinner on day 2 was held at the centrally located Swansea Waterfront Museum and was preceded by the true highlight of this meeting, the Carl Singer Foundation Session.

The Carl Singer Foundation Session is a great initiative from Singer Instruments, which has been a fixture at BYG meetings for the last few years. It is a session specifically for students and promotes humour through talks that lasted for six minutes (plus two minutes for questions). This year’s session was one of the best with the students, not only showcasing excellent research, but really embracing the nature of the session, including doing the splits on the stage, singing and even juggling!

More information on the event can be found by visiting the meeting website, searching #BYG2016 on Twitter and checking out the photos on Flickr.