As part of Malta University, I was chosen to represent the university at the 72nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting that took place between 25 and 30 June 2023 in Germany. I am a researcher at the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malta, working with Prof. Giuseppe Di Giovanni in the study of Absence seizures.
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings promotes the exchange of ideas between different peers, scientific disciplines, and cultures since 1951. I had the opportunity to represent Malta University in this year’s meeting dedicated to Medicine and Physiology. The Lake Constance in Bavaria, Germany, serves as a host of this event every year and the small island of Lindau welcomes around 40 Nobel laureates and 600 young researchers and scientific comities representatives from all over the globe. Offering the perfect atmosphere to foster scientific collaborations and growth.
Lindau was possibly the best experience I ever had at a conference. As a representative of Malta and a young researcher in neuroscience, I was eager to make connections with other young scientists and found common points of interest for collaboration. Everyone was happy to share insights into their work and discuss problematics in your fields, namely lack of diversity and a poor work-life balance. Everything at this event was top-notch, speciality the lectures given by the Nobel Laureates. They have shown us not only what they discovered but also how their discoveries improved the field. As a young neuroscientist, I really appreciated the opportunity to talk directly with the Nobel Laureates John O'Keefe, Edvard I. Moser, Michael M. Rosbash and Sir Martin J. Evans about their work and my common point of interest.
The open exchanges with the Nobel Laureates gave us the opportunity to understand better how it is to make a discovery, it’s a great privilege to sit in a room with a Nobel Laureate and a few other young researchers and have the possibility to make questions, not only scientific but also about their career and the path to it. All the Nobel Laureates were happy and eager to reply to any question. I think they were having as much fun as us.
As for the future, I hope the connections made during this meeting will foster collaborations and allow Malta University to collaborate with institutions from other parts of the globe. As for my personal aspect, I hope my new science friends will in the near future become collaborators. Lindau was an unforgettable experience, and I expressed my appreciation for the opportunity given to me by Malta University.
Towards the end of my doctoral studies, I received an email informing me that I had been nominated to represent the University of Malta as a young scientist at the interdisciplinary Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in 2020. This was, of course, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the nomination, I still had to go through the application process, and I recall my colleagues telling me, at the time, what a unique experience this would be. Nevertheless, I questioned how approachable the Nobel Laureates would be and how willing they would be to listen to the young scientists. The pandemic prevented the event from taking place and necessitated its postponement. The following year the pandemic was still in full swing, making a physical meeting difficult, however, the Lindau committee this time opted for an online conference. Although not the same immersive experience as a physical meeting, this was still a truly well-organised conference, during which I confirmed everything my colleagues had told me about the Nobel Laureates. They are approachable and willing to listen to all our questions and thoughts. At a time when the pandemic is still foremost on our minds, I recall the first talk which focused on the COVID-19 vaccine and at the time generated much controversy. This discussion took place between Stefan Kaufmann, Han Steutel, Jyaysi Desai and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, all very experienced people, who have left their mark in the scientific field. On the second day, I joined one of the Networking sessions, a platform set up by the committee. I found these one-to-one meetings to be truly enjoyable and enriching. Through these sessions, I made new contacts, who today form part of a rather active online community as well as a basis for future collaborations. This experience has been truly formative and contributed to shaping my views, both on science and on life. I am sure will enhance my overall development as a scientist. I truly look forward to further immersing myself in this experience in 2024, where we will hopefully be participating in person.
My experience at the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting of 2019 was totally transformational in that I not only had the opportunity to exchange ideas with some of the titans of the last decades of physics, but I also had in-depth conversations with the future leaders of science. This ranged from meeting the leader of an expedition that was set to spend a year in Antarctica to experiment with how long-term living conditions on Mars may turn out. Another participant was involved with the H0LiCOW collaboration which is one of the leading teams working on new measurements of the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Needless to say, I met exceptional people from around the world who may be part of one of the next revolutions that lead to a future Nobel prize. Indeed, everyone at the meeting had a strong sense of excitement about doing research and a genuine eagerness to discuss some of the most difficult and pressing problems in Physics today. It was also fascinating to meet Donna Strickland (the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics) who shared the 2018 for her work on lasers, as well as Vint Cerf (Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist) who co-invented TCP/IP on which the internet is built and Martin Hellman who shared the Turing Award in 2015 for his contributions to cryptography. Another part of my 2019 meeting was centered on meeting Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, the co-discoverers of the accelerating Universe, which was a unique experience that gave me a window into how this frontier work led to the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. The invaluable links I gained through my participation in that Summer’s Lindau Meeting will benefit me and my research group for years to come. In a nutshell, my participation in the Lindau 2019 meeting gave me a unique learning experience which I hope to share with others, and which helped me form a small part of a global network of cutting-edge researchers.
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was a very memorable experience. I distinctly recall the feeling of being surrounded by like-minded individuals who cared passionately about the workings of nature. The thread that bound all participants was a deep sense of curiosity about the universe, coupled with a resolve to dedicate one's life to trying to make some progress with fitting a piece in the puzzle. I especially enjoyed the informal exchanges we had with the Nobel Laureates and invited speakers. In particular, I remember the stimulating conversations with George Smoot, Brian Schmidt, and Vinton Cerf. The late evening chats (that ran well into the night!) amongst participants about some intriguing question or other, and the excitement of being part of it all are hard to forget. The setup of the meeting fostered an environment of active discussion and debate, and it was very enriching to hear from other physicists, both about their own work and their views on my research. When you’ve been pondering on a problem for some time, such interactions with people working within the same general field but on diverse topics can also help you view your own work from an alternative perspective, sometimes even prompting you to frame a question differently. Beyond the science, the meeting served to form new friendships with individuals from all over the world. It was also an honour to have the opportunity to serve as an ambassador for my institution and my country.
I was nominated to represent the University of Malta as a young scientist at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting for Physiology or Medicine, in the year 2014. At the time, I’d just concluded a doctorate in Physiology and Biochemistry and was busy laying the groundwork for more ambitious postdoc research based on the anti-cancer properties of the common drug, aspirin. The chance to attend a live meeting with Nobel laureate giants such as Oliver Smithies, Elizabeth Blackburn and Roger Tsien, all of whom have left such a huge impact on the field of life sciences, was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and had me very excited. The Lindau Meetings themselves certainly did not disappoint. The first thing that struck me on arrival was the beauty of the venue’s surroundings, such as the sprawling Lake Constance and the pretty town of Lindau itself. I soon had the pleasure of meeting and bonding with many other young researchers from all corners of the world. We were all so different and yet could all relate to the same quirks and hardships of laboratory research. This consoled me greatly because it helped normalise my own tough challenges as a researcher. Furthermore, my new friends and I would joke about but also informally discuss science, exchanging research ideas in a way I’d scarcely experienced before, given my somewhat isolated research experience in Malta, where opportunities for informal scientific discourse outside of my tiny circle of colleagues were scarce. These conversations made me again realise that collegiality and informal discourse among scientists are essential for scientific innovation and problem-solving. The Nobel Laureates themselves had enormous presence and delivered some very engaging talks and debates on myriad scientific topics. One thing that struck me was the clarity and simplicity of the language they used to communicate science, as well as the humility that some of them demonstrated, both in their appearance and discourse. These laureates, whom we tend to idolise, just seemed a lot more relatable, the heights of their achievements just a shade less intimidating. From this, I could see that great science doesn’t necessarily require genius, just hard work and a dose of good luck!
Science is a human enterprise. Just like the Viennese café culture in the nineteenth century brought myriad writers and artists together to discuss and change our way of thinking, one cannot divorce some of the greatest scientific milestones – quantum mechanics is one particular example – from the discussions and philosophical arguments that brought them forth. The Lindau Meetings of Nobel Laureates carry on this tradition in the noblest manner. They bring together two groups of scientists. On the one hand, one finds a couple of dozen Nobel Laureates, who have been recognised by the international scientific community as having made landmark contributions to their field and to humanity. On the other hand, there is a group of a few hundred young scientists, generally fresh PhD graduates, who come from across the globe. They create the perfect environment for cross-generational, cross-cultural, and occasionally cross-discipline scientific dialogue. Mixing formal lectures with informal conversations, they break barriers and inspire the next generation of scientific leaders who would otherwise likely not have the opportunity to interact with such a large number of scientific stars over the span of several days. Arriving in Lindau I felt intimidated. Having been chosen to represent Malta for that year’s Lindau meeting dedicated to physics, I was humbled, and cognizant of the dual – scientific and ambassadorial – role I had during the meeting. Compared to the large delegation of scientists, reporters, and politicians some countries send to Lindau, the sole Maltese representative is easily overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the event. Nevertheless, once things settled down, I quickly discovered that the Nobel Laureates in attendance were uniformly approachable. Formal introductions gave way to good-natured discussions and sparring (Prof. Roy J Glauber [1925–2018; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2005] called me “my favourite bully” in a note he left in a book I carried). Collaborations were born and scientific careers forged. What surprised me most of all was what happens at Lindau ever so slightly behind the scenes. The meeting introduced me to the world of science diplomacy; I fondly recall walking by two high-level representatives discussing how scientific exchanges could aid the thawing of US–Cuba relations. This encounter, and the curiosity it fostered in me, took me down a winding path that eventually led me to become Malta’s first Ambassador for Digital Affairs in 2021. My scientific life would truly have been much poorer without my trip to Lindau.