Nathan Hodson
University of Birmingham, UK

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.110.14

On 30 November 2017 the H3 symposium: Muscle Physiology and Metabolism was held in the memory of Professor Michael Rennie. This event brought together numerous leaders in the fields of amino acid metabolism and transport, many of whom had been good friends with Prof. Rennie. As a final year PhD student, the opportunity to attend this symposium provided a unique chance to network with these academics from whom I gained invaluable knowledge not only about muscle physiology but also how they all managed to succeed in their respective careers. In particular, learning how young faculty members made the transition from postdoctoral fellows to faculty was fascinating and will definitely help with my future career in research.

This symposium, much like other Society events I have attended, was structured in such a way to permit these networking opportunities, and all attendees contributed to such a friendly atmosphere allowing stimulating discussions to flow. Having spoken to several other early career physiologists who attended this meeting, all agreed with this observation, commenting on how enlightening it was to have such an opportunity to converse with such high-profile researchers. Specifically, hearing experts present about lesser-publicised areas such as Hippo/Yap signalling and proton-assisted amino acid transport was of great relevance to my own research going forward.

At this symposium I was lucky enough to be awarded one of the inaugural Michael Rennie – Universities of Dundee and Nottingham Awards, an honour which I will treasure for the entirety of my research career. The chance to present before such an esteemed audience of muscle physiologists certainly improved my presentation skills, something which will no doubt aid any future presentations I may give.

I would certainly recommend the H3 symposia to all early career physiologists, as a chance to ‘learn from the best’ in your field and have the opportunity to network with the people you normally may only see as a final author on a paper. Finally, I would like to thank The Physiological Society for organising this event which, as I’m sure all who attended would agree, was a great success and a fitting tribute to one of the major contributors to our field.