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2nd FEBS Advanced Lecture Course
ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Proteins:
From Multidrug Resistance to Genetic Disease
February 20-27, 1999
Sport & Erlebnis Hotel**** Gosau
Austria
Organized by Karl KUCHLER
Course Secretary Friederike ROSENTHAL
Quotes and Comments on the Course
1. Organisation of the program?
Fantastic course, unique in its suitability for researchers in the same field (ABC genes).
Once again the organizers have assembled an excellent program covering an impressive number of proteins from animals, plants and prokaryotes. Congratulation.
Avoid hot topic discussions overlapping with poster session.
This was a fantastically well organized meeting.
Very good break after lunch allowing for informal discussions on fresh air.
Well organized. A good idea to have meeting office hours to handle questions and problems as they arise.
Very hard work. Congratulations!!!!!
Long conference.
2. Quality of the practical program?
Not applicable for this course!
3. Quality of formal presentations?
Was the subject adequately covered, quality of slides or visual aids?
I would say that all the presentations were above average.
I was very impressed with the venue's ability to accommodate all types of presentations, including computer-based slides.
95% was of the highest quality.
Some presenters gave only published data.
Head-microphone was good to listen. All presentations were very good.
Some workshops and short talks were quite difficult to follow because lack of basics in the beginning and visual conclusions in the end of presentations.
4. Was there adequate discussion after each presentation, at the end of each session, during practical work?
Every moment was maximally utilized.
Dinner and "Hot Topic" Discussions are very good for the whole group, and the site is quite amenable to afternoon discussions on the slopes and off.
Great management of time.
5. Balance between practical work and lectures?
Not applicable for this course!
6. Did the course fulfill your expectations?
More than excellent.
I look forward for the next Gosau course! Thanks to the organizers!!!
Would like to see this course being organized again in the future.
It was more than my expectation. I cordially thank the organizer members.
Fantastic symposia with an emphasis on encouraging discussion and comments.
One of the best meetings or courses I have been to in years. The quality of the presentations was excellent. The breadth of the program was very good.
Probably one of the very best conferences I have attended in the last 10 years. Excellent course - covered a very wide field, which was exactly what I wanted.
7. Was there ...
... chance to receive help with current work?
... chance to obtain overview of the fields?
... possibility to meet others in your field?
... opportunity for informal discussions with lecturers?
... enough time for discussion after poster sessions?
... enough time for informal discussions with other participants?
... any problem with the course language?
... any problem with transportation?
... sufficient information available about the course?
More publicity in North America needed. Excellent idea to reserve tables for speakers so that students can meet with them.
We had many more applications than we could accept. Thus, we think that the advertising worked this time, although it could be a bit better in the states (it is also very costly).
8. How are your expenses being paid?
9. Duration of the course?
10. Location and accommodation of the course?
Location excellent, accommodation at capacity for meals.
Location superb and accommodation good except that rooms were shared.
More efficient use of time if venue were closer to ski hill.
Poor weather makes the walk to the lecture hall treacherous. Why can't the path be shoveled regularly.
This was done but it was very difficult to keep the path free of snow and ice clean due the persisting snow storm.
Fantastic location.
Fantastic locale; food plentiful and good.
Inconvenient for people staying at other places, but food is good.
Maybe a city like Salzburg is better if you don't care for skiing, so you can go into town.
Excellent organisation, but local hotel was not optimally dealing with larger number of participants.
Location excellent; very crowded dinner room. Long waiting cue.
Location O.K.! Accommodation small regarding the number of participants.
If you have to accommodate principal investigators in shared rooms, use a hotel that gives them two towels.
I am sure that the towel problem could have been easily solved by asking the hotel staff or talking to us!
Very nice hotel.
There was very good food to sustain the neurons! It would be more comfortable to have more space for dinner - some colleagues had to cruise around to find some place to sit.
Accommodation is O.K., venue is absolutely unsatisfactory for me, since I don't ski.
Too much snow.
The main complaint in 1997 was "to little snow" - sorry we had too much this time!
The place is too difficult to be reached.
Improved a lot from last time
Drinks (water, soft drinks) should be provided, included with the meals and generally more readily available.
More transportation for guests staying at other hotels
11. Quality of facilities?
(lecture hall, slide projection, other visual aids, acoustic transmission)
Poor lightning, uncomfortable chairs (inadequate communication via phone, e-mail)
We disagree that the communication was inadequate, since the majority of participants could live with what we provided.
Sound and microphones were great!
It may be good to think about no more than 175 people and the use of the conference room available at the hotel.
Seats uncomfortable, but adequate.
The light in the hall was poor. In the discussion one could often not see how the speakers looked like.
It was very inconvenient to be put up in other hotels.
Audio - excellent, slides excellent, hall lightning was inadequate.
The organizing team did a superb job here, and coped with all kinds of minor technical hitches with no problem.
Chairs in lecture hall are very hard and uncomfortable. Difficult to sit for so many hours on uncomfortable chairs. Also difficult to see the lecturer and screen from many places in the room.
12. Give your overall evaluation of the course?
Perhaps the best I've attended.
13. If this course were to be repeated, what changes or improvements would you suggest?
To lower the registration price.
Of course, the fee for principal investigators is somewhat higher, but this helps to ensure a low registration fee for students.
Could not be better.
Short break after two lectures in the morning session. Lunch packages are too small, rest of food was very good.
Only lodging at the venue hotel.
Single rooms for all participants.
I wish we could afford single rooms for everybody!
A. If it must be at Gosau:
a) heat the lecture hall
b) move the discussion group from the posters (too loud)
c) provide room keys for all participants
d) house all persons at one site.
B. Move the course to a larger facility in an urban location that is easier to reach (transportation) and provides more things to do during off hours than ski.
Change the venue to one that accommodate such a large group. Service was inadequate. ---> OPEN THE MEETING OFFICE ALL DAY! (hire a secretary)
The venue is basically big enough, because there is room for more than 350 people! However, we certainly do agree that the service was sometimes insufficient (although NOT inadequate) due do a shortage in personnel (which was partly caused by the closed roads, since part of the servants could not get to their jobs). If everybody is willing (?) to pay 50.- USD more in registration fee, we could hire a full-time secretary and open the office ALL DAY - how about that?
Take into account the capacity of the venue in relation to the number of participants.
The "Hot Topic" session idea was excellent but I suggest that next time the room for it would be away from the "poster" room.
Use hotel which is prepared for international visitors. More room keys. Accept international currency.
I donšt know any hotel in Germany, France or USA to accept "international currency"?! How about using a credit card, which was in fact accepted by the hotel.
Less focus on MDR, everything had to be turned into drug transportation and MDR. I would appreciate more focus on physiology and cell biology.
Maybe a bit shorter (about 5-6 days).
Less intensive hours. I had to travel 20 hours for the meeting and did not have a chance to readjust because the course hours only permitted 6.5 hours of sleep a night. It would have be good to have a short first day to allow adjustment.
The course was excellent in every respect. If the posters can be spread out a bit more there would be more room to talk.
Shorter (4 days), Keep the number of participants at 200.
I would include the introductory overview at the start.
Try to shorten a little bit (perhaps few less short talks).
One inconvenience was not being able to use computer to check e-mail - long queues. If one or more computers available all the time in a general area that will be very good.
Longer office hours, more internet access - one computer was good, but sometimes there were long waits.
Shorten duration by one day.
The poster stands were rather "complicated" and not very handy.
These plexi-covered poster boards are not the best.
We agree that the poster walls are not very convenient and we will work on a better solution.
Improve the poster presentations, even though we could finally meet everybody.
Due to the talks scheduled before dinner, 250 Man wanted to eat all at the same time. With poster session before dinner, this is more flexible.
It is not practical for 250 people to eat dinner buffet style when there is only one buffet line. It would have been better to have dinner be served, as lunch was.
We agree that the idea of buffet dinner was not the best one considering the number of people, but we assumed it would be better and more convenient since people like to have a choice as to what they want to eat. Plus, there was "all you can eat", which many participants liked a lot!
Define hot topic discussions ahead of time. This is flexible since e-mail communication is uniformly available.
Keep it just the same.
The number of participants has increased compared to the first time. The group should certainly not become bigger, it will lose its informal character then.
Receiving meals was poorly organized. Some beverages should be available at no charge such as juice or tea.
A. A basic lecture for each session, as mentioned.
B. Coke and diet coke at the coffee breaks (86 ATS in the bar!)
In addition to coffee breaks during talks, coffee or water should be available at all times during talks at the rear of the hall.
Good idea to provide water near the lecture hall all the time during the talks.
This course has to be repeated. No major changes are needed.
1. Consider inclusion of MF pumps in programme.
2. Consider concurrent sessions do as to avoid late evening sessions.
Concurrent sessions would lead to a loss of interaction between participants and we did not consider them as they would be counterproductive.
Improve transportation for off-site guests. Regular shuttle service at 30 minute interval in off meeting time.
The timing of this service was based on the schedule of scientific programme. Thus, a 30 minute interval shuttle is unnecessary and because it would cost a fortune it is simply unaffordable.
Shorten plenary talks by 5 minutes, increase workshop talks by 5 minutes, keep short talks the same.
To include the price of beverages in the course fee.
Compared to the majority of meetings, the registration fee for students is by all means cheap considering that it covers both housing and food. At this price, we cannot afford to include all beverages. However, the idea of juice and tea for free with dinner is a good one!
The office hour is too short. The office should open for much longer time. The quality of the local organizing staff is too poor! E.g., they didn't know where the welcome party will be held, etc...
They could not answer any of our questions.
We hope this criticism meant other staff (!!??), since everybody of my ABC guard was certainly up to date at any time of the meeting.
Improve auditorium facilities.
The speakers from industry were not treated with the same respect as the professors and students.
Change the venue and give everyone their own bed.
It would be nice if the plenary speakers would show more new data.
Better vegetarian food - I'm hungry!
It appears that many of the speakers gave talk last time, so perhaps alternate speakers should be chosen next time. Most only presented work that has already been published.
Regarding "new" speakers, we in fact had almost 50 percent new lecturers this time. While we strongly encouraged all invited speakers to present mainly new data, we cannot force them to do so!
Try to keep the meeting at this size - if it gets larger, the atmosphere and quality may suffer.
Less short talks.
Bigger lecture hall with comfortable seating, easier visibility. Longer or more frequent breaks between sessions.
14. We would appreciate any additional comments or suggestions.
I support a meeting organized by Victor Ling in Vancouver.
As someone from a non-academic background (I work in industry) this was an excellent opportunity to learn about their area, which is very new to me and to meet and talk with the leading lights in academics.
Conference is very informal and everyone is very friendly and helpful. As a student, I was able to make contacts to arrange for antibody use and learn about a new assay. This is a very important meeting.
Organization of talks was excellent.
An excellent meeting which should continue.
Scientifically great!!!
Very well organized!!!
No hot topic talks during poster viewing.
Speaker should present only new data. A maximum of 50% of recently published data.
Keep the science the way it was at this meeting. Excellent science.
Really well organized, excellent support provided by "team". Access to e-mail, fax, printer really appreciated.
A few additional lectures on the clinical relevance of the ABC transporters would make it even better.
The registration procedure by the WWW site was very convenient. The abstract book with enough space for notes was well designed.
Incredibly helpful ABC staff - much appreciated.
Please put one more sandwich in the lunch package.
The lunch package was indeed not optimal and for some people (including myself) it was not enough.
This was my first congress, but it will probably be the best. Thank you for the great time! I will certainly return in ABC01.
Overall an excellent meeting, should be continued definitely.
I have greatly appreciated the great flexibility in the organization, showing that everything was perfect.
Interesting course, especially the combination of talks covering the whole field regarding microorganisms to human disease is very informative. Furthermore it is great to have together so many leading scientists covering those fields.
Thanks to the organizers, did a very good job.
Organizers were very kind and helpful.
More yeast ABC transporters.
Karl Kuchler and his staff did absolutely fantastic job to make the course a great success.
I was the beneficiary of a generous gesture from the organizers. I would like to request a few more grants/fellowships are made available for the developing countries.
I appreciate the hot topic discussion but reduced time for poster.
I miss the coffee between 2-4 pm.
Next time - please not so many talks late at night!
Would the organizer be interested in maintaining a web site to make an inventory of ABC proteins?
The organizers, especially Dr. Kuchler, deserve all the credit for the success of this meeting. I had a wonderful week. Thank you!
Provide more food for lunch.
The local organizers were exceptionally thorough and dedicated.
Thank you for a memorable and useful meeting.
Just the right number of participants, not more.
I have enjoyed all aspects of this course, academic and social. I would be very disappointed if it is not repeated.
It would be nice to select different speakers at every meeting and thereby avoid repetition of speak opportunities of some persons.
Do it again in two years !!
We have no idea now what will happen in two years, but we will see how we feel about an ABC01 at the beginning of the year 2000.
Would be nice to have a microphone and speaker for "Hot Topic" discussions.
Please repeat it!
The course will have a positive impact to move the field forward because it brought together scientists who do not typically hear about each other's work but should.
Karl Kuchler and his staff did an EXCELLENT job of handling all issue that arose during the week. It was great to know that Karl could help us (specifically) to solve our problems of getting a very important package delivered.
Very good collection of talks from the field of ABC. Principal investigator's talks usually gave a very good overview to the field for a general audience. Last minute accommodations for transport back to Salzburg on Friday were made. Trip to Salzburg midweek fun. I think a course in Gosau would be nice in the spring as well when we might to do more than skiing.
Excellent organization - especially web page for abstract submission and information. The content of the meeting makes it very exciting - a single family of proteins with such divers functions that only a meeting such as this can overview it.
This has become a very diverse field, thus a 10-15 minutes overview by the chairman of each session would be appreciated by the uninitiated.
Better introduction by the first speaker of each session (in some case) especially when taking into account the variety of systems and that it is a lecture course.
The chairman of each session was supposed to give an introduction to the general topic of the symposia.
Prearrange ski-rental deals and group ski lessons with the ski school at the outset.
We did prearrange ski-rental last time - it did not work, since people did not show for the pre-arranged lessons or gear pick-up.
This course was organized extremely well - perhaps better than any other meeting of this type I have attended. It was easy to see that a lot of hard work occurred before and during the conference. I had the impression that Karl and Friederike thought about each participant, almost individually. I am very impressed.
Internet access will become even more important over time, so if possible, more of this would be good.
The final evening reception was terrific! The organizers are the best! Major problem with telephone with the office only open so few hours a day, it was virtually impossible for me to call home.
The office was not the only place with a phone - how about a calling card or the hotel phone in case of an emergency?
Smoking in public facilities should be strongly discouraged.
My compliments to Karl Kuchler and his staff - they have done an excellent job!! I liked the approach of this meeting - focusing on one family of molecules and bring people together from different systems from bacteria to humans - the opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas is excellent.
The organizers were very helpful, polite and courteous. Much thanks to the KAKU-lab for a job well done!
GENERAL COMMENT
Thanks to everybody who acknowledged and appreciated our hard work!!
GENERAL COMMENT REGARDING "Hotel and Venue"
We agree that there were a number of small and medium problems with the venue and with the lecture hall and with the hotel staff itself. If we ever do this again, we think about potential other places, although most participants had no major problem with this venue.
GENERAL COMMENT REGARDING "Outside Staying"
I am very disappointed and I have a hard time to accept this critique, particularly since acceptance of late applicants was based on the fact that everybody who was housed off-site, specifically agreed to it. In fact, this was a pre-condition to be late-accepted to the course, and we even told people that it would be somewhat inconvenient!
GENERAL COMMENT REGARDING "Office hours" and "Internet access"
If we ever do this again, we will try to have longer meeting office hours and more computers with e-mail connections.
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