I went to a poster symposium on the VCU medical school campus today. All the presenters were postdocs; the event was intended to coincide with National Postdoc Appreciation Week (see also: my rant in yesterday's blog post). A few highlights:

• A postdoc from the Physics department told me about the jellium model. 
• A postdoc from Pharmacology and Toxicology (and a former member of the personal development class I took this past Spring) told me about use of a DAGLβ inhibitor as a treatment for pain and inflammation. 
• Another postdoc from the same department talked with me about a novel plant-derived chromone compound which may be useful in treating glutamate excitotoxicity.
• Free lunch

And a few problems, since nothing is ever perfect:

• Visitors appeared to be other postdocs - I didn't see many faculty, but I'm also not familiar with everyone on the medical campus. Postdocs are generally at a career position where they have accumulated extensive knowledge and have had more than a few opportunities to present it, so I'd argue that less advanced researchers (graduate students, or hey, even undergrads) would get more out of an event like this than they would from a symposium of their fellows.
• Just a single poster was present from the Microbiology and Immunology department. I know that department has at least ten postdocs right now. It would have been nice to see more variety among the physics and biochemistry research.