Monday, October 27th, 2021, was the day that many of the CoCID team members had been looking forward to. The day when team members from the different participating organisations could meet in person.
After almost ten months of communicating by video conferencing, it was great to talk, walk, eat and drink together in Dublin where everyone got to experience Ireland’s “four-seasons-in-a-day” weather.
Day-1 of the meeting was hosted by Nicola Fletcher and Dimitri Scholz at UCD Campus. It started with a hybrid Project Meeting with partners who were able to travel to Dublin and partners who joined the meeting by video conference. Kenneth Fahy, the CoCID Project Manager, chaired the meeting, getting all partners to present an update on their research results and future research plans.
The meeting was followed by a tour of the laboratories in the School of Veterinary Science where Nicola and her team carry out their research on the Hepatitis-C virus as part of CoCID work package XX. The group then retired to a local restaurant for a nice meal and discussion, with a few managing to squeeze in a quick pint at a pub on the way!
Day-2 started with a tour of Dimitri’s core imaging facilities at the UCD Conway Institute for Biomolecular and Biomedical Research. The group then travelled the short journey to SiriusXT’s facilities, about three kilometres from UCD. Here, the group got to see two SXT-100 soft x-ray microscopes, one of which is used for ongoing development and the other, which is currently being tested and is designated to be relocated to the Conway Institute to provide a cell imaging service.
The two-day meeting concluded with lunch where the CoCID partners were joined by the SiriusXT technical staff, allowing the visiting group to learn all about laser-produced plasmas, cell vitrification and cell nano-tomography while eating pizza!
UCD and SiriusXT would like to thank everyone who joined the CoCID meetings, either virtually or in person, and we look forward to meeting everyone again in the new year.