SBI Celebrates 10 Years
More than 80 peopled joined the festivities on May 23, 2019, when SBI celebrated its 10th Anniversary, which is officially on June 1. The private anniversary symposium and celebration was held at UCD in the Conway and Charles Institutes and included hosted speakers, fun science talks, a retrospective photo wall, music, games and food.
The day started off with a welcome and brief history of SBI from Director Walter Kolch, followed by presentations from three SBI alumni - Dr. Carolanne Doherty, Dr. Alex Cheong and Dr. Alex von Kriegsheim. After a quick coffee break gathered around a four-poster photo wall, everyone reconvened to hear a highly entertaining and informative series of "fun" science talks from members of the current SBI team. The afternoon included lunch and a fiercely competitive scavenger hunt across campus.
The highlight of the day for many was an official toast from Boris Kholodenko, who said, "During the first 10 years of SBI, we put research on fundamental biology of signaling networks at the front of SBI activities and were also active in applications. We had more successes than failures and were very productive academically in terms of new papers, grants and PhD defences. But as the poet Boris Pasternak said 'The goal of art is one’s self-giving, and not the racket of success'. So my toast for the next 10 years of SBI is to keep our excellence in fundamental science and to develop applications exponentially.
"And again by Pasternak:
'Shall never deviate or bend,
But be alive, alive and only,
Alive and only to the end'".
Prof. Cormac Taylor sang a special SBI ballad and the evening concluded after a barbecue, cake-cutting, awards ceremony and table quiz.
A new SBI video in honour of the 10th Anniversary was also launched on May 23, and is available on You Tube and the SBI website.
*Special thanks to the organisers of this event and to the extra effort put in by Stephanie McKenna and Luis Iglesias Martinez in creating the scavenger hunt and table quiz, Cormac Taylor for penning and performing our anthem, Jens Rauch in creating the photo wall posters, Ashish Neve for taking photos, Susan Yeates for running errands and punching numbers, Jessica Ralston and Maryann Kelly for keeping track of it all, and of course, to Walter and Boris, for bringing everyone together in the first place.
