Spring equinox in Warwick

The University of Warwick campus is beautiful all year round, but there’s something about spring being in full force on the equinox that truly brings it to life. This Clock Club kicked off a day early, with a triad of workshops. One saw expert communicator Chris Smith, of Naked Scientist fame, coach each of us in the ways of media interaction. The discussion spanned significant breadth, and everyone walked away with personalised advice, but here’s a taster for you:

• Start with a complete but simple summary of what you want to communicate

• It's usually preferable to be well-understood than it is to be specific

• Primacy and recency—whatever you say first and last will be best remembered

Two more workshops were led by Catherine-Rose Stocks-Rankin and Dave Blackbell from the Scottish Policy and Research Exchange, with a focus on facilitating change through policy pathways. First, we were introduced to the complex archipelago of research and policy interactions, where research is often a rudderless ship sailing sanguinely towards the shores of impact, aided by luck and blown off course by almost everything else. Our own Eva Winnebeck (University of Surrey) and Annette Allen (University of Manchester) shared their experiences of putting research into practice, showing that it’s rarely a smooth journey but it can be done. How exactly? The Theory of Change workshop on Friday morning gave us a framework of how to navigate impact activities, transforming this otherwise intangible process.

The clock struck 11.00 on Friday and it was time for the main event—more than 150 academics descended on the otherwise tranquil campus. In chronological order, the first session saw five excellent speakers. Silke Kiessling (University of Surrey) sharing how rhythmicity in microbiota could be using to inform diabetes diagnosis. Matthew Jolly (University of Warwick) discussed the rhythmicity of root nodule genes integral to nitrogen fixation and Mehran Akhtar (University of Leicester) introduced us to the role of ‘Lovit’, a vision transmission protein, in regulating sleep. Mae James (University of Leicester), unusually, brought physical chemistry to the table, proposing a mechanism by which haem could regulate the circadian clock transcription-translation feedback loop. Leo Creasey (University of Haifa) explained the adaptive freedom provided by the evolutionary flexibility in the circadian clock.

In the blink of an eye, it was time for the lunch and poster session. An hour-and-a-half is never long enough to talk to everyone nor see everything; we had topics from herbicide chronotoxicity to the daylight-saving time controversy.

Upon returning to the lecture hall, we heard from Takato Imaizumi (University of Washington) on the mechanisms of photoperiodic flowering in Arabidopsis. Stephanie Williams (John Innes Centre) followed with an explanation of how the circadian clock in plants remembers winter. Chao Ye (Warwick) spoke about the cyanobacterial circadian clock and Marco Ferrari (Imperial College London) shared information about “ClockCyte”—an imaging tool he used to investigate circadian disruption in brain tissue. Nina Rzechorzek (University of Cambridge) spoke to us about CircuLATE—a project that emerged from a datathon, showing that the clock time at which patients are turned over (proned) in critical care may influence their odds of survival. Jeffrey Kelu (King’s College London) discussed his research on the circadian mechanism regulating muscle homeostasis and Siyu Chen (University of Oxford) spoke about the regulatory effect of clock genes on immune cell morphology and motility. Chloe Yeung (Institute of Sports Medicine Copenhagen) finished off the session by presenting the idea that mechanical loading can induce a rhythm in tendons.

It wouldn’t be a clock club without a little competition, so awards were given for posters and talks alike. Stephanie clinched the prize for best talk, followed closely by Marco and Mae. Best poster prizes went to Akanksha Bafna (University of Oxford), Rachael Ralph (University of Warwick) and Rebecca Hughes (University of Manchester).

Lastly, the keynote this spring was delivered by John Hogenesch (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre), current President of SRBR, who, undefeated by jet lag, gave an engaging talk on circadian biology within a clinical setting. A poignant final note, reminding us again that chronobiology isn’t just beautiful science, it also has the potential to directly impact our lives.