| This is the latest in a line of
Spetses (or Spetsai in English) Summer
Schools whose history stretches back more than forty years - see http://biochemie.web.med.uni-muenchen.de/Spetses/
for a complete history. The first was organised by Marianne
Grubnberg-Manago in 1966. The second in 1969 had Francis Crick as
chairman, with Mark Bretscher and Brian Clark, all from Cambridge
(UK). The list of speakers over the years is a galaxy of the
giants of molecular biology. Many of them have gone on to win
Nobel Prizes. Brian Clark continued to be an organiser until 2005. I
joined him in 1989 and took over as chairman of the "proteins" meeting
in 2005. The ethos of the traditional Summer School is that the students (advanced graduate students and post-docs) would spend up to two weeks in the past and nine days in the present school in the company of other keen young scientists and world famous senior scientists in a relaxed setting to have lectures at an introductory level and then state-of-the-art science. Each day is taken up with lectures in the morning, lunch with the lecturers, tutorials on the beach in the afternoon or poster sessions, an evening lecture and then dinner in the town in tavernas with the lecturers. There is time for relaxation and excursions to recover. Lecturers and students stay at the Spetses Hotel, which has its private beach, for this meeting. The summer school is very special for its organization and interactions, which have become rare in these days of short intense meetings where speakers often fly in for their lecture and then depart. The lecturers, barring emergencies, stay for the whole meeting. Former students at the school now number many famous scientists who look back on the school with great fondness, often it was a turning point in their career where they decided on their future research supervisors and made friendships for life. Alan Fersht, February 2009 |