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256th ACS National Meeting
Oct 12, 2019
Teo Rui Yang, Tan Wei Lin
In August 2019, NUS ACSSC was given the opportunity to send student representatives to attend the 256th ACS National Meeting & Expo in San Diego, CA. We were excited and thankful to be chosen to represent our student chapter. We were able to network with students of different nationalities through this National Meeting. We also attended several informative seminars and presented our research poster.
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Among the various talks and panel discussions that we attended at the conference; this particular panel discussion by three marine biologists made a lasting impression on us.
The first speaker talked about her research on the effects of ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification on the marine ecosystem. The second speaker talked about how the Chemistry and Biology of water affected the visual physiology of marine animals. Since most of the attendees of the panel discussion were undergraduates, he offered us some bits of career advice. He shared the journey of how he ended up with his current research interest and how he would not have foreseen his current interdisciplinary research when he was still an undergraduate. He assured us that the scientific career is a marathon, not a sprint. This is particularly good advice because as soon to be fresh undergraduates, we will soon be at the crossroads of life and faced with the daunting task of deciding either to further our studies at the graduate level or to enter the workforce.
The last speaker’s research interest was on Marine natural products chemistry. This is a fascinating field of Marine Biology that neither one of us had ever heard about. It was interesting to know that our regular off-the-counter antibiotics come from organic molecules found in marine microbes and plants! The speaker also talked about the fun side of his job which includes scouting across the oceans from the poles to the equator looking for new organisms to derive important medicinal and nutritional benefits to these new marine plants or animals.
Lastly, we were honoured to be able to present our poster at the “Undergraduate Research Poster Session”. It was an enjoyable learning experience to share with others. Overall, it was definitely an experience that we would never forget and would always treasure. The chance to forge new friendships, to meeting professors from different fields and learning from their experience, to attending extremely intriguing and informative talks and finally to the opportunity for poster presentation was amazing and eye-opening.