What the beach told me about science in 2022

Rehoboth. In 2013, I started a small segment on our blog that reflected on the summer and my time at the beach, weaving in small anecdotes that happened during my summer vacation. This was nine years ago and I have to admit that I didn’t keep up this annual tradition as well as I could have and I would like to start it up again. Here are my 2022 thoughts about the beach and science and what we learn about biomedical research during the times when we are not actually involved in it. While putting this post together, I realized that this year’s theme is about limitations. So how does a beach vacation relate to limitations and how does this all fit together? Please bear with me. Continue reading

The 2022 STXBP1 Summit – a personal reflection

STXBP1 in Philly. From August 18-20, the STXBP1 community met in the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia, the first in-person summit after our initial Philadelphia meeting in 2019. Much has changed since our initial meeting – an entire scientific community has woken up to study one of the most common (and enigmatic) neurodevelopmental disorders, the STXBP1 Foundation has grown significantly in activities and scope, and there are very promising developments in the main therapeutic areas, namely drug development, antisense oligonucleotides, and gene therapy. It is not an exaggeration to say that STXBP1 is on the map in 2022 and it is one of the genes with the fastest growing knowledge. Here are my personal reflections from the 2022 STXBP1 Summit – and I want to thank our entire ENGIN team for their fantastic work during our first Synapse Clinic the day before the Summit. Continue reading