This is a very special week! We’re launching the first episode of our Podovirus podcast! This has been started on a whim (I wanted to explore the podcast format, since I love talking to phage people and I love podcasts). I was inspired to start when Jeremy Barr reached out to see if we could help promote the upcoming Viruses of Microbes conference. Jan said ‘you should interview Jeremy for your new pod!’. And I said… ok fine! This will force me to launch this! Many thanks in advance to Jeremy for being kind (and brave) enough to be the first guest.

With each podcast we’ll be posting a text version in Capsid & Tail, so if you’re more of a reader than a listener, no problem! I’ve also put this one on YouTube if you want to watch our smiling faces as we discuss this year’s most exciting phage conference!!

A meeting 5+ years in the making

Jessica Sacher: Hello, Jeremy! Today we get to discuss Viruses of Microbes, the one upcoming in Australia. I’m so excited to talk to you today. And also for you to be the very first podcast guest on a non-existent podcast that will exist after this. So bear with us on the attempt at winging this and seeing what podcasting is like, and if the phage community would like us to keep going!

Jeremy Barr is an associate professor at Monash University in Australia, and he’s the one spearheading this VoM conference coming up. So welcome, Jeremy. How are you?

Jeremy Barr: Doing really well! I want to give a big thanks to Phage Directory to you and Jan. Shout out for being your inaugural podcast guest. I hope there’s many more. I’m doing well. Exciting times, we’re a couple of months out from Viruses of Microbes, which is both truly exciting and truly terrifying at the same time. It’s been a lot of years in planning and work, and it’s all coming together really quickly.

Jessica: I want to touch on the long years of planning, because I feel like this is a special meeting. When did you start prepping for this?

Jeremy: Yes, so in 2018 or so I think I got an email from ISVM (the International Society for Viruses of Microbes; they’re the organizing body behind the Viruses of Microbes meeting). They were asking if I would consider putting my hand up to host a VoM meeting in Australia. And I remember that time I wrote back and said, ‘not right now’. I just didn’t think it was the right time for me. And I’m quite thankful I said no, initially, because if I said yes, I think we would have been one of the COVID meetings. (And shout out to Joana and the Portugal team and the Georgia team for all the changes they made in their meetings through COVID…!)

But then I think I got a follow up email in late 2019. And that was to put in a bid to host the 2024 meeting. And that time, I felt, yes, this is a great time, I think I’m ready. I think Australia’s a great place to host this meeting. So we sent off an application in 2019.

That was a lot more involved than I first thought it would be. We had to sketch and plan where we’re going to host the meeting, even a preliminary budget for something 3-4 years away. But it was exciting times. And then obviously a couple months later, COVID happened and the world changed. And I thought ‘oh my god, what have I done? I’ve agreed to host an international meeting and we’ve just got into a pandemic.’ But it’s all worked out. And yeah, now we’re a couple of months out from the actual meeting itself.

Jessica: Wow, okay, so five years in the making? And this will not be the first in-person meeting since COVID, but the third?

Jeremy: Exactly, so we’ve had a bit of a reshuffle. So 2020 was meant to be Portugal. And that got shuffled and pushed back to 2022 due to COVID. And that was a phenomenal meeting. It was my first in person meeting since the pandemic started. But Tbilisi, Georgia was meant to be 2022. So they very graciously decided to push their meeting to 2023 to allow Portugal to have their meeting. So ours wasn’t really impacted. I guess one knock-on effect of this is that we’ve had 3 VoMs over 3 years. And this is traditionally a bi-yearly meeting. So the next meeting will be in 2026.

Heading to the land down under!

Jessica: Yeah. And it’s so exciting that this one’s not in Europe for the very first time. Is that right?

Jeremy: Yes, that’s correct. First time outside of Europe.

Jessica: So we’re about to see if people get on a plane and come down to the land down under, where Jan and I just left, sadly, after two years of awesome Aussie adventures. We almost made it to Cairns (or ‘Cans’, as I’m told to say it), which is where this year’s VoM meeting will be hosted. And that’s where the Great Barrier Reef is.

Jan and I were actually about to go there at Christmas just before leaving Australia, and a cyclone hit and we had to cancel it about two days in advance. So we still haven’t been. And yet, since we just left Australia, we won’t be able to come to this meeting; just the wrong timing for us.

So my frustration of missing this is strong, but maybe you can tell everyone else, what’s it like down there? Is the Great Barrier Reef still standing?

Jeremy: It’s gonna be incredible, hosting the meeting in Cairns. Part of the goal of this meeting is to broaden the reach of the VoM meetings and ISVM. We’ve got a big opportunity to connect and network with some additional researchers, scientists, and companies in our geographic region, you know, pushing a lot from Southeast Asia. Of course, Australia and New Zealand, India, China, Japan, South Korea, you know, a lot of our neighbouring countries.

Cairns itself is a beautiful location. And I chose this location for a couple of reasons. The first one was, it’s an international tourist destination, really a place that I think everyone should visit. I’m sad you didn’t make it up there. It’s in the tropics in Australia. So it is known to get the occasional cyclone and tropical storm. The one thing I’ll say about our meeting is that it’s in July, which is winter in Australia. (I live in Melbourne, which is down in the very southeast corner in Australia; I didn’t necessarily want to bring everyone to Melbourne in winter, as it’s quite rainy and cold). But Cairns in July is honestly the best time to go. It’s the winter season, but it stays beautiful and warm. Its average temperature is about 22 to 27 degrees Celsius. I’m not going to be able to do the Fahrenheit conversion in my head for the Americans, but it’s warm, quite temperate. We don’t get a lot of storms in June, July. And it’s the best time to go and visit the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef is still there. Yes, we’ve gone through a number of bleaching events. I think there’s another major bleaching event that just happened this summer, which is always really sad to hear. But I’ve been out multiple times to the reef. It’s truly a spectacular experience. And I’d really encourage anyone who’s coming along, at least take a day to go out and visit. It’s an amazing area. And Cairns is just such a unique location that’s situated right on the shores of the Reef, plus you’ve got the rainforest. It’s a great destination.

Jessica: Awesome. So no cyclones are going to happen, guaranteed. Yeah, we never should have planned a trip during Christmas; that was the wrong time.

The conference center, and the conference structure: what to expect

Jessica: Maybe now you could paint a picture: what’s the conference center going to be like, and what is the vibe going to be like during the conference?

Jeremy: So the VoM meeting is traditionally a 4.5-day meeting. We’re gonna start Monday afternoon and finish Friday afternoon. The conference is going to be hosted at the Cairns Convention Center. I actually went to my first ever conference in Cairns at the convention center. They’ve just gone through a big renovation, there’s a big focus on environmentalism, big outdoor green spaces. You can expect a world class conference center, some big open auditoriums, floor space for posters and vendors, and for lunches and morning teas.

Cairns city itself is a bit more relaxed. It’s not a major urban city in Australia. There’s definitely a city center, there’s, you know, beautiful esplanades, there’s lots of walking spaces, lots of greenery. Not as dense, it’s a bit more quiet, a bit more of a slower, more relaxed lifestyle. The conference venue itself is right near downtown Cairns, so it’s very close to the bars, which is I think one of the most important things in the meeting. So there’ll be lots of opportunities for post-conference drinks and food and catching up with everyone. And it’s a very walkable city. There’s also some public transport and of course, there’s Ubers and taxis to get around.

But how concerned do we need to be about crocodiles?

Jessica: Back to the cyclone, when that was happening, we saw on the news that there were crocodiles that were being ‘rescued’ because of the flood. What is the crocodile situation?

Jeremy: So it’s a great question. Crocodiles are native and endemic to that Cairns region and much of northern Queensland. You know, a good tip, you don’t go near open waterways in Cairns, it’s probably a good thing for all international people to know. You’ll see signs saying crocs in this area. Don’t go by the riverbank. It does sound a little scary, but you know, it’s well designed and you shouldn’t have those opportunities.

Actually, on one of my trips to Cairns I actually got on a jet ski. And we went off and we did this up into the estuaries. And so we’re on jet skis, riding through the creeks and you go through the mangrove swamps, and the tropical rainforest around that area. And I remember coming around river bends, and you just see crocodiles on the edge of the shore, and they’d scuttle into the water. I can say I did fall off my jet ski multiple times, and I lived to tell the tale. So you definitely need to respect them. You should get an opportunity to see some crocs while you’re up there. Something to just be aware of.

Jessica: So cool! Yeah, I remember when we were looking around at places there, there was this Esplanade thing. I think it was like a big public swimming area, almost like a pool beside the ocean. No crocodiles allowed. So I know that they’ve got infrastructure to support living the beachy life without getting eaten.

Science! What to expect?

Jessica: Okay, so we’ll flip from crocodiles back to science and back again, presumably. What is the scientific program shaping up to be? Is it all finalized?

Jeremy: So the program itself is all semi finalized, invites for oral presentations and poster presentations have just been sent out. We’re just waiting for all the talks to be accepted. So I can’t give you too many details yet. But I can tell you a little bit about the structure.

So it’s a 4.5 day meeting. We’ve got four incredible keynote speakers and presentationt. We’ve got 11-12 invited speakers; one invited speaker for each of our symposium topics across the meeting. And for each of our topics, we have between 3-5 selected talks from the abstracts. We had our scientific organizing committee helping review all the abstracts. We had over 470 submitted for the meeting, which was incredible! It was also a real challenge to review. I have a lot of respect for everyone who’s built scientific programs in the past. It’s a lot of work, a lot of stress. But I’m really excited for how that program shaped up. We’ve got a really good mix of geography, career stage, and industry/academic presentations. It’s going to be an amazing meeting. And we should have a full program up on our website in early to mid May.

Jessica: Wow. 470 abstracts. So are you no longer stressed that people aren’t going to come to the meeting?

Jeremy: I’d be lying if I didn’t have a few recurring nightmares where I wake up in the middle of the night and think no one’s going to attend the meeting. We do have early bird registration approaching, closing on the 17th of May. And that’s really a deadline. So I’d encourage everybody who’s planning to come along to the meeting, get your registrations in by that early bird deadline, so you can secure the best rate.

The joys and stresses of organizing

Jessica: What can you tell us about as an organizer, what was something that went wrong? What’s been the most stressful thing so far?

Jeremy: Yeah, it’s like I would say, knock on wood, nothing yet has gone incredibly wrong. It’s been a bit of a mix of slower, really long-term planning mixed in with some high intensity periods. You know, when we had to go through abstract ranking and selection, that was a really intensive period. I will give a shout out to our amazing local organizing committee, big shout out to Ruby Lin who’s co-running the meeting with me, along with all of our organizing committee across Australia and New Zealand. They’ve just been incredible to work with. And I’m just really proud to have worked with everyone in that committee. I’m really glad I put my name up for this, and that we’ve decided to organize this meeting.

Workshops for early career researchers

Jessica: What kind of fun things do you have planned for the evenings?

Jeremy: We’ve got a few events planned, and a really exciting social program. The first event is on the Monday morning: our pre-conference workshop. We got funding from the Australian Academy of Sciences to run this workshop; it’s going to be run by an organizer called Shane Huntington.

Shane is a scientist, but he’s also a communication expert. And he’s going to run about a 3.5 hour masterclass in communication. It’s really pitched to our PhDs and early career researchers (ECRs). Communication is effectively everything you do in your science, you’re either communicating verbally, writing, or presenting at conferences. And so Shane’s going to start with that communication masterclass, then how to write an effective grant and cover letter to apply for jobs, and for funding. It is limited on numbers, so register soon.

Incredible keynotes and a mixer in the rainforest with koalas (!)

Jeremy: In terms of our social programs, we’ve got our opening ceremony on the Monday night, which is going to have two incredible keynote speakers. We’ve got Colin Hill from University College Cork in Ireland, and Jill Banfield from UC Berkeley and Monash University giving opening lectures, which I’m very, very excited about.

And then of course, we’ve got our big dinner on the Thursday at the Rainforestation Nature Park. It’s about a 30 minute bus ride into the Daintree Rainforest. It’s going to be interactive, so rather than sitting down at a table, you’re going to be standing up mingling with people. There’ll be food and drinks, some Australian animals around, like wallabies, emus, and koalas, maybe some snakes and lizards. And you can ride a World War II army duck deeper into the rainforest.

Jeremy’s conferencing tips

Jessica: So I’m guessing there’s a lot of students that are trying to hope that their PI will send them to this meeting. How would you be making that case?

Jeremy: Firstly, I’ll say I went to my first Viruses of Microbes in Zurich in 2014. I was an early career postdoc. And it was an amazing meeting. I don’t think I knew many people. I think I went on my own in terms of the lab. And, you know, I met a lot of people, and it was a great networking opportunity.

What I would say to students to ECRs who want to come to this meeting, and need to make that case to your PI. Yes, the science is incredible. And you’ll see some amazing presentations, from some really leading researchers in the field, and also some emerging early career researchers. But I’d say the more impactful part of the meeting is the networking and connections and collaborations that you’ll make, meeting people in your field, meeting your peers, people at a similar career stage who are going to grow in the field with you; this is incredibly valuable.

You might want to have a very targeted approach, for example, I’m going to go and speak to this speaker. We will have an opportunity for the ECRs in a closed, meet the speaker event. And I would also come up with a bit of a plan. What do you really want to get out of the meeting? Who do you want to meet? What information or knowledge or potential collaborations do you want to bring back to your group? I think there’s lots of opportunities there. And that can really pay dividends for your career as you move forward.

Jessica: I totally agree. I was also at that Zurich meeting, and that was my first VoM, as well. It was so fun. So do you have any personal stories about something cool that came out of a conference?

Jeremy: I’ve got so many of those stories. From meeting people at these meetings, I’ve had follow up calls to discuss potential collaborations and research ideas. I’ve been invited to join grant applications. We’ve hosted people in our lab for weeks, months. When I was a postdoc, I went across to a few other groups, I spent time in Europe, the US. And a lot of that came off the back of meetings. It leads to new research ideas, I think it can lead to publications, grant funding opportunities. It’s so incredibly important. And I’d say most people are really open to this. I have people come up to meetings and want to discuss science and potentially visit our lab or start a new project idea or be involved in a grant. And my answer is almost always, yes, I’d be happy to be involved, happy to chat further.

Jessica: I love this. I feel like whenever I used to go to conferences, I would just kind of show up. And I think I was oriented toward listening to all the talks. I considered that that was the point of a conference. But one meeting, I went around with my abstract book, trying to check off everybody’s names, trying to meet everyone. And then I was made fun of by my fellow grad students, because they were like, ‘ah, what a Jessica thing to do’. But I realized, that was the most valuable thing I did, way more than just the talks. Even though the talks are what led to the meetings with the people (because then you have something to ask them about).

Jeremy: I would absolutely echo that. And I would add, one of my favorite parts of the VoM meetings are the poster sessions. Tthe talks are always great, but a talk is very one-way. At the posters, you’re meeting people, having those one on one discussions. I really love that. So I make sure I have as much time at the posters as I can. We’ll be having 3 dedicated poster sessions at the meeting. It’s a great opportunity.

Jessica: What are your tips for students when they have a famous professor they want to talk to? How are they supposed to just go up to them? And what should they say?

Jeremy: I would say, everybody here is a person, and would be more than happy to chat and say hello. I totally understand it can be intimidating when it’s a famous person, you’ve read all their papers. But don’t let that stop you from saying hi. You’re gonna see these people walking around. Make some time, take that step, put your nerves aside and go up and say hello. ‘Hello, my name is Jeremy, I’m doing this research, I’m a big fan of your work’. And just have a chat. They’re normal people. No one will say no to saying hello and talking about themselves for a couple of minutes. Ask them what they’re doing, what their thoughts are, and make sure you introduce yourself.

Housing — where will people be staying?

Jessica: What’s the housing situation? Are people staying in hotels because the conference center is connected to hotels, or is there some student housing or things like that?

Jeremy: Yep, so there’s lots of different accommodation options in Cairns. On our website we’ve got a few listed. There’s several hotels very close by to the conference center. We’ve tried to find some hotels with different price points. I’d also say people can look at Airbnb and other kinds of apartment rentals. There’s a number of self service apartments, Airbnbs, full units and houses that people can book.

Most of that will be walkable. So if you’re staying within Cairns city center, most hotels will be within a 5 minute walk to the conference. There are some options a bit further out, and buses available. And there’s also taxis and Ubers.

Jessica: Cool. It’s always good to know if Uber exists in a place. No one knows anything about Australia — we need to tell them it’s a civilized place.

Who else is coming?

Jessica: How many people are expecting, from how many countries? Do you have a sense of where people are all coming from yet?

Jeremy: We’ve got about 200 registered delegates, and we’re expecting that to increase as we get to our early bird registration. We had over 470 abstracts submitted for the meeting, and these were really diverse. I think we had submissions from 40-50 countries. Lots of ECRs, PhD students.

Maybe one other aspect of the meeting I’ll give a shoutout to is really promoting early career researchers. This meeting has traditionally always been a single stream, meaning everyone is present in the same session, which is great. But I think one of the downsides to that is that PhDs and postdocs don’t get as many opportunities to talk. So we’re doing one thing differently this meeting. We’re going to have an ECR focus session. It’s going to be a split session. The first split session in the history of the VoM meeting. The reason for this is to give PhDs and ECRs more opportunities to speak.

Jessica: Awesome. I feel like Australia really does a good job at focusing on early career researchers. That was definitely something I sensed when I was there. There’s so much intentionality behind training and things like that.

Australia: come for the science, stay for the food and wine

Jessica: Ok, last question. What is something people don’t realize about Australia?

Jeremy: Obviously, Australia is very big. It’s very far. I’ve had multiple people tell me how far the flight is. Australia is a really large and diverse country. I think, you know, 95 percent of our population lives on the coast. And 90 percent of our population live in capital cities. And we’ve got some incredible capital cities, you know, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth are all amazing places to visit and live. We’ve got great food, coffee, and wine. I would hope that everyone that comes along to the VoM meeting takes some time to explore Australia.

Jessica: Yeah, I totally echo that. I feel like our main takeaway from Australia was like, the food is just better than almost anywhere we’ve lived for sure. Like no one told us Australia is a foodie place, but I think it is. Of course you do hear about the coffee. I was expecting the coffee. I wasn’t expecting the food.

Thank you so much, Jeremy, for talking to me today, for organizing this, and for spending 5 years of your life making this conference happen.

Everybody needs to see if they can go to VoM 2024 in Cairns. It’ll be a fantastic chance to meet other researchers, and a perfect chance to go see Australia. And then you’ll all be moving there for two years like we did, or more (because we almost didn’t leave).

Want to listen to (or watch) to the full interview?

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Want to see some pictures of what to expect?

Watch Jeremy present a short video ad about the meeting

Transcribed with https://otter.ai and Descript, lightly edited for clarity by Jessica.