Starting with a dark morning (due to being up at 4:00 am) I got to Manchester airport to meet up with my colleaguesDr Alex HendersonandProfs Roy GoodacreandPeter Gardner.A very quick and easy flight over to Dublin and we were at the mercy of our excellent hostProf.Hugh Byrneat theFOCAS Research Institute, Dublin Institute of Technology.The reason we were all here was the 2ndquarterly meeting of the Clinical Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy Network(www.clirspec.org)funded by anEPSRC Network Grant.
We had a lot to get through including feedback on the progress of the working parties, which will do the main work of the network, but also to report on the progress we have made so far.在很短的时间我们能够communicate our developments through our members atPittcon2014, secure a session atSciX2014and atPittcon 2015, advertise ourselves through aSpecial Issue of the Journal of Biophotonics on “Photonic Biofluid Diagnostics”and importantly (very hot of the press) had aRSC Faraday Discussionaccepted for 2016 on “Advanced Vibrational Spectroscopy for Biomedical Diagnostics”.
Through this meeting we have managed to establish a Summer School that will take place in 2015 on the shores ofLake Windermereand our first conference that will be held at theUniversity of Exeterhosted byProf.Nick StoneandDr Julian Mogerin April 2015.Stay tuned for more information soon.
A running theme of the meeting was the fact that we wanted to engage with the industrial and clinical communities to a greater extent and as such we are glad to be able to sponsor the invited talk ofProf.Hugh BarratSPEC 2014, Krakow, Poland.The long first day came to close and Prof.Byrne was kind enough to take us for a drink (or two) ofVitamin G.
The next day of the meeting was solely set aside to discuss the development of an international professional society in clinical spectroscopy: the main thrust of our exit strategy.What we didn’t realise when the agenda was set was the potential minefield of logistical problems that we were getting into.However, after many hours discussion, we have a good plan and hope to be able to provide more information soon on how the dynamic world wide community of clinicians, industrialist and academics in our exciting field can get together in order to make a difference to the delivery of healthcare for the benefit of patients
Until the next time…
