ICRS Laboratory Skills Course

April 19 - 21, 2007 - Cardiff - Wales, UK

Picture Gallery of the Course.

 A first-time successful experiment!

Professor Bruce Caterson walks into his favorite 'post-mortem-analysis pub' Incognito with a smile on his face. He is wearing his Australian hat and obviously very content - not only has Australia beaten New Zealand in last night's cricket match: Bruce and his colleagues from Cardiff and Oswestry have just organized the first ICRS basic skills lab course - a great success!

When analyzing these three intense days in retrospect it is amazing how many fundamental subjects have passed the revue: cell culture and -viability assays, Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, cell sorting, RT-PCR and more. The attending audience: 42 participants with backgrounds ranging from biomedical- through veterinary sciences to clinical orthopaedics, including an orthopaedic surgeon who held a pipette for the first time! The program incorporated lectures on different scientific subjects, by experienced UK and international staff, followed by practical sessions supervised by the lecturer and his- or her PhD students. Due to the careful preparation it was possible to perform multiple experiments in a short time; the discussions during and after the experiments enabled the more experienced attendants to share their opinions with colleagues and local faculty. In addition to the regular program, several subjects were the topic of ardent debate: pros and cons of ACI and microfracture, how to set up a lab facility (Professor James Richardson) and pearls and pitfalls when setting up protein- and micro-array experiments.

The social program was at least as indulging and included testing of local drafts in the nearby pub Incognito and a course dinner in the Park House on Friday. During the three-course dinner the audience from sixteen different nations discussed fundamental issues, solved world problems, planned skiing conventions and toasted to their classmates in their own tongue. It is amazing that all the lecturers were present in unscathed state the next morning!

The ICRS basic skills course can be called a success due to its excellent organization, extensive time for discussion, varied audience and great social program. We hope to see some first results from this meeting in Warsaw and in other future meetings, and hope (and expect!) that this meeting will be repeated next year.

Marijn Rutgers, MD
Department of Orthopaedics,
University Medical Center Utrecht
Netherlands