The 2017 Young European Scientist Meeting's edition will gather nearly 500 biomedical students, coming from 30 different countries, in the Antiga, Mui Nobre, Sempre Leal e Invicta cidade do Porto (the Old, Most Noble, Always Loyal and Undefeated city of Porto).
YES Meeting was born in 2006 as a result of a pioneer idea of a young student from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP). His goal was to gather together students from several biomedical areas, alongside with researchers from cutting-edge centers, giving them the opportunity to present and discuss their work.
Despite being considered by many a very ambitious concept, the value of this idea started to take shape with the support of the Faculty, our dear Professors and some firms that believed and shared the value of the initiative, which is exclusively organized by FMUP medical students. This was a completely original project in Portugal and attracted speakers from some of the major research centers in the world since the very beginning.
Throughout the 11 editions of the congress, we were able to count on the presence of speakers coming from the Universities of Zurich, Basel, Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden, Lausanne, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Texas, Duke, Yale, San Diego, and the Karolinska, Howard Hughes and Max Planck Institutes, to mention just a few. Our invited speakers have enjoyed themselves in Porto, and ever since helped spreading the word about this conference, allowing it to cross the European borders and reach Asia, America, and Africa!
In 2017, the YES Meeting will bring to its participants the subjects of autophagy (the theme related to the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine), Huntington's disease, psychopathy, ex vivo surgery, the “human-on-a-chip” technology, myoelectric controled prosthetics, memory formation, and spinal cord injury repair through neuroprosthetic systems. As our special guests, we welcome Professor Nicholas Lydon, recipient of the 2009 Lasker Award for the discovery of Imatinib, a revolutionary molecule for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia, and Professor Ada Yonath, 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate, for her work concerning the ribosome.
For the 12th Edition, we established a partnership with Porto Biomedical Journal (PBJ), the scientific journal that was brought to life from a common effort between FMUP and Centro Hospitalar São João (CHSJ), the largest Portuguese teaching hospital, which is deeply tied to the Faculty. Some of the most prestigious members of both institutions take active part in PBJ's Editorial Board, as well as the YES Meeting Scientific Committee.
It is our belief that in the present context of globalization and increasing velocity of changes regarding distinct forms of knowledge, students must be encouraged to exchange experiences concerning scientific matters and technological development. Furthermore, junior research should be faced as a complement to the biomedical curriculum, instead of an alternative. An “AND” rather than an “OR”! Both components are connected and, in a synergic manner, have the potential to enable the raise of more complete professionals.
Therefore, in this September/October issue of PBJ, you may find our Presenting Students’ Abstracts, selected out of 238 submissions in the fields of Neurosciences, Oncology & Molecular Biology, Public Health & Medical Informatics, Internal Medicine, Immunology & Physiology, and Surgery. Their research work is published alongside with articles written by renowned scientific authorities, who have previously been at the YES Meeting or will be speaking at the 12th edition of the congress. On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I would like to thank the speakers from our past and current edition for having accepted to contribute to this project and uniquely enrich it.
It is my pleasure to invite you all to leaf through this issue's pages, aimed at breaking boundaries, in a remarkable platform where Science meets Knowledge.