Report on attending the 5th GDR RNA scientific meeting

NanoBubbles postdocs Nathanne Rost and Mustafa Gharib attended the 5th GDR RNA scientific meeting in Strasbourg on 10-11 June 2024. The GDR RNA (Groupement de Recherche on Ribonucleic Acid) aims to bring together French teams working on the targeting of RNA, its modifications and its use as a tool around three main themes:

• Axis 1. Design and synthesis of tools: from small molecule RNA ligands to modified RNA oligonucleotides
• Axis 2. Study of interactions: development of biochemical and biophysical tools for the understanding of interaction mechanisms at the molecular and cellular level
• Axis 3. Therapeutic applications: in vitro and in vivo models

Below is a report by Rost and Gharib on this conference.

Mustafa:

(We) had the privilege of representing the NanoBubbles project at the 5^th Scientific Annual Meeting of GDR RNA (GDR 2083), held from 10 – 11 June 2024 at Strasbourg, France. The meeting brought together around 100 researchers from various fields to discuss advancements in RNA research. These sessions covered a wide range of topics: RNA research in microbiology, chemical biology, and in biology. The lectures were mainly given by young researchers and PhD students. Some keynote lectures were delivered to show RNA as tool and a target in the field of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. The meeting’s well-structured schedule included ample breaks, which facilitated productive discussions and networking opportunities among participants. This allowed us to engage in meaningful conversations outside the formal sessions, enhancing the overall experience.

The poster sessions provided an excellent platform to showcase and discuss recent research in the field. The meeting comprised 18 speakers and 22 posters have been presented. I presented our own work on the NanoBubbles replication initiative in nanobiotechnology, receiving constructive feedback about the initiative and they were very happy that funding bodies allocated funds for such a project with the aim to help correcting the science. I engaged in stimulating conversations with fellow researchers and heard again similar stories about replication crisis in their field. I explained as well our replication plan, the steps we have already taken, and the current progress of our work. Some people from the committee pass by the poster and showed interest in the work. And of course, they asked a couple of questions regarding the process of replication and some technical details involved. They asked about what would we do in case the original authors would not reply to our emails? I explained that this we had already encountered and how did we react to that and I discussed with them the registration reports format that we will adopt in our replication initiative.

Overall, the conference offered a valuable opportunity to showcase the replication project to a broader scientific audience. Although feedback was limited, all of it was positive, constructive, and encouraging and I think it will greatly benefit our replication initiative in nanobiotechnology.

Nathanne:

This was a non-nano scientific meeting, which means that its content was completely different from other conferences I attended in the past. Even though we could not contribute for the discussions during the talks, I learned a lot about RNA (e.g.; structures, reasons for studying it, diseases related to RNA, mechanisms of cleavage, and different uses of techniques applied in some of the articles we had annotated) and how broad is the field. Because this meeting was dedicated to people in the GDR RNA network, they were not expecting researchers from outside the field, but they kindly accepted us. When I submitted the PPPR abstract, I received an e-mail from Maria Duca (manager of the GDR RNA), asking about our lab, as we are not part of the GDR. She was nice and during one of the coffee breaks I talked to her to say “thank you for having us”, as I felt welcome throughout the meeting. Then she explained (even if I did not contest) that they could not give us an oral presentation because the priority was for people from the network. Moreover, she told me that if we want to be part of it, we can talk to her and also that there are other GDRs (maybe some can be interesting for NBs, especially for the replication project, as APPAMAT | Apparence des matériaux and ImaBio | Imagerie et microscopie en biologie, see https://www.insis.cnrs.fr/fr/les-groupements-de-recherche).

None of the works were related to the intracellular detection of RNA, except ours. About the interactions during my presentation of the PPPR poster, 4 people came to talk to me; one of them had read 3 of the articles we referenced in the poster (commented by us in PubPeer) and she had also found some problems with them (I invited her to comment on PubPeer and said that we are also open to posting joint comments with external collaborators); additionally, she already knows PubPeer and the work of Raphaël. Another person knew about SmartFlares, she seemed to be interested in our initiative and had taken a picture of the poster. A third one asked a lot of questions and the most interesting one was “Who validates your work?” to which I replied that our comments are open to public scrutiny; moreover, we would like to read criticism about our comments, because of the discussions with other researchers and opportunity to learn, and I also added that, as much as we can, our comments are written by more than one annotator. He also commented about the ‘lack of justice, at least in France’ for cases of fraud. Someone asked “How do you happen to have funds for this project?” my answer was “We are funded by ERC for a 5-year project”. The 4 people who came said that the poster was different from the others (I’m not sure if they were talking about the design or the content) and all of them scanned the QR code which is a link to our website. The take-home message from this event confirms that irrespective of the research field, talking about the correction of science and making more people aware of the problems and the possibility of contributing to mitigating their effects is always important; further, doing this is an approach accessible to us (for instance, it is not hard to attend in this kind of events and present a poster). I know that 4 out of 100 participants is not too much, but it is already something, especially in a scientific community almost completely ‘out of our bubble’!

Kind regards,

Mustafa and Nathanne (from Strasbourg)!