'Dreams Vs Reality'- Part 1

It was initially a dream to go for this:
but in the end it became a reality that I was given permission to present my work there, among other 300+ participants that took part in the 3rd regional conference of molecular medicine.

Registration in the early morning

Plenary session, speaker from the West
Speaker from the East

In research and science, there's actually no East and West, but for better tomorrow.

Posters presentations

For the conference banquet, we had this:

that looked like this:

In reality, it looked good and tasted good. My impression that all hotel food is not nice is waded off.

The four of us from UNIMAS at the banquet. The other two girls are San Nee and Siaw Shi from medical faculty.

The speakers were invited to perform Joget on stage.

Besides the scientific programme, we did have social event too. Like this one, BBQ on the second night at USM Kubang Kerian (although actually the chefs were those doing the BBQ).

The last event just before the closing ceremony was panel discussion. The speakers represented institutions from UK, Sweden, Germany, Malaysia. There was also a Malaysian working in UK organization.

Conclusions that I could derive from the panel discussion:

1. Train the good people to do research, meaning right people doing right things
2. It's not the quantity of researchers or scientists that matters, but the quality
3. Fundamental research is the engine of progress (in our country, if a balance between fundamental and applied research can be achieved, it will be considered a 'blessing' already to the scientific community)
4. The 'genomics', 'proteomics' and the rest of the 'omics' are just tools for research, asking the right question is more important in research.
   

How I wish our policy makers were there too...

p/s: to be continued