Lyon, France (03/07/2009-03/11/2009)

This was an extremely lucky March break for me. I was selected as a sponsored participant for BioVision 2009, a world life sciences forum that brings together scientists, policy makers, industry leaders, and even Nobel laureates into a common forum to identify and speak on the major problems facing the world. The conference can really almost be described as the Davos of Life Science. The theme of this year's event was the growing challenges surrounding the urbanization of the planet.

I was one of 75 selected young scientists and clinicians given the honour of meeting amazingly accomplished people, and the young attendees themselves were quite impressive in their own right. It was certainly a great place to exchange ideas and learn about some issues that we take for granted here in the West. I look forward to keeping in touch with the new people I've met and hope to read about them and their work in the not-so-distant future!

I was also quite impressed with Lyon itself - it seemed a lot nicer than I remembered. It was a very clean vibrant city with a friendly and polite populace. The food was great, and the scenery lovely. I actually hope to return one day (which if you know my traditional stance on Western Europe is quite an unusual statement for me to say!)