In July 2019, Professor Jeeyon Jeong attended the Cell Biology of Metals Gordon Research Conference in Castelldefels, Spain, with two thesis students from the 2018-2019 academic year, Emily Park ’19 and Leah Kim ’19. This Gordon Research Conference was a small gathering attended by around 170 scientists specializing in the field of organismal biology of metals.
At the conference, Emily presented a poster titled “PRC2-mediated H3K27me3 contributes to transcriptional regulation of FIT-dependent iron deficiency response,” based on her thesis research and her recent publication in Frontiers in Plant Science. Leah presented “Ferroportin 3 is a mitochondrial iron exporter necessary for iron homeostasis in Arabidopsis,” which included data from her thesis, as well as previous results from many other students in the lab.
“I learned so much from presenting my poster,” commented Leah, “This was my first time presenting at a conference, and I gained many insights into future directions I could pursue on the ferroportin 3 project from discussing my research with other scientists in the field.”
Emily commented, “The GRC was a really interesting conference to attend in that it expanded my view of cellular metal biology and that I got to put faces to names from all the papers I read previously. The interdisciplinary nature, in both topic and field, of the conference was also a good reminder of who makes up the scientific community and how we can all benefit from each other's works.”
Both Emily and Leah will be returning to the Jeong Lab in the fall as post-baccalaureate research assistants. They look forward to applying all they learned from the conference to their continued research endeavors in the lab!
