2012 Presentations-Billboard Science

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ENVIRONMENT Research programmelaunches at US ecological sites p.115

UNITED STATES Competitors could benefit ifgrant applications go public p.115

B Y K E N D A L L P O W E L L

It was the scientific version of a Las Vegas-style casino. The poster session at theAmerican Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)meeting in Denver, Colorado, in December2011 included numerous aisles lined withposters, and young presenters showing offthe fruits of endless hours in the laboratory.A few metres away, dozens of representativesfrom science agencies, institutes and scientific-instrument companies staffed a sea of exhibi-

tor booths. They were shamelessly vying for

scientists attention with the free sweets, pens,noise-makers and other bits of sparkly plasticthat end up at the bottom of a canvas confer-ence bag. It is difficult enough for an attendeeto locate a particular poster; it is harder still forpresenters to get noticed.

Rashieda Hatcher, a doctoral student at Bay-lor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, andthird-place winner in the graduate-studentcategory of the ASCB Minority Affairs Com-mittee poster contest, made the most of herprime, end-aisle location. Her display, which

chronicled her study of the protein securin in

breast cancer, had many of the hallmarks of awinning poster: tastefully colourful, with anenlarged photo of her most important result(an abnormal branching of the mammarygland in mice that dont produce securin) atthe centre. It had cartoons instead of text toexplain the methods and conclusions. Hatcherhad included business cards beside her posterso that viewers could contact her later. She hadembraced the idea that a poster is a good placeto sell her science.

Her efforts brought immediate results, witha visit from a leading researcher in her field.

After talking to Hatcher about her work andfuture experiments, Zena Werb, a develop-mental biologist at the University of Califor-nia, San Francisco, invited Hatcher to a talkby Werbs postdoctoral fellow. The next morn-ing, they discussed the prospect of workingtogether after Hatcher finishes her PhD.

Senior scientists see poster sessions as anopportunity for junior researchers to showoff their science, to get fresh perspectives onresearch questions and to network. Presenterswho follow a few basic rules in poster layout,and who talk viewers through their work, willdraw a crowd. Judges say that a killer posterwill have clean lines, white space, intriguingimages and a clear visual flow that supportsa well-told research story. The worst postershave panel after panel of tiny print, which canturn a poster session into a lonely four hoursfor the presenter.

A poster should look catchy from 10 metresaway, says Colin Purrington, formerly an evo-lutionary biologist at Swarthmore College inPennsylvania, and now a photographer whomaintains a blog on poster design (see tinyurl.com/6wb62m9). A clean layout speaks to anuncluttered mind, and thats who you want totalk to at meetings, he says.

VISUAL AIDSA poster should function as a visual aid tohelp the presenter to talk through the researchin an informal and engaging way. It should notbe an abridged version of the researchers cur-rent manuscript, stresses Zen Faulkes, a neuro-ethologist at University of Texas-Pan Americanin Edinburg. People in a poster session usu-ally have just come from an intense sessionand they need a mental break, says JamieSimon, senior illustrator at the Salk Institutefor Biological Sciences in La Jolla, California.Simon, who helps Salk researchers to designand print their posters, encourages scientists

to stick to the standards of graphic design

P R E S E N T AT I O N S

Billboard sciencePosters are a chance to show off work and to network withcolleagues, but only if the design is easy on the eye.

A winning poster uses bold graphics, plenty of white space and limited text to draw viewers.

Z.

FAULKES/SHUTTERSTOCK

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(see Creating an eye-catching poster). Thedesign should follow the photography law ofthirds. Most posters are three columns across,with three sections per column. Put the hotstuff in the middle of the second column, saysSimon as Hatcher did. It is more visuallyappealing to use lots of white space to sepa-rate sections, and avoid distracting, whole-

background images or swirls. Although mostacademic departments do not have a graphicsguru like Simon, researchers can learn fromposter sites such as Purringtons and Faulkesblogs (see tinyurl.com/7uv92fu).

Giving a little thought to how the layout isorganized goes a long way, says cell biologistPeter Lenart at the European Molecular BiologyLaboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Althoughmost scientists use Microsoft PowerPoint soft-ware to design posters, Lenart prefers AdobeIllustrator because it offers greater flexibilityand more graphic-design tools. He uses boxesto delineate each results section, each of which

has its own headline, and places figure legendsin boxes with arrows to direct readers to theappropriate image. Lenart places any addi-tional information for that results panel in abox marked with an encircled i. Clear directiongives even the most casual of browsers a chanceto understand the overall point of the research.

Award-winning presenters weave a researchtale that flows from the layout. Martin Bergert,a doctoral student at the Max Planck Insti-tute of Molecular Cell Biology and Geneticsin Dresden, Germany, had two related storieshe wanted to convey at the annual meeting ofthe European Molecular Biology Organiza-tion (EMBO) last September in Vienna. Heplaced the figures and text for each story in abox with a catchy title: On the edge blebs vs.

lamellipodia to highlight work on two types ofcellular protrusion, and On the move howto migrate by blebbing to describe results oncell migration.

Natasha Gutierrez, a doctoral student incell biology at Rutgers University in Newark,New Jersey, and the second-place winner in thegraduate-student category of the ASCBs postercompetition, put all her potential figures ontoa board, then removed those that didnt fit herresearch story. Gutierrez displayed her mostimpressive experiment in a three-panelled fig-ure showing two microscopic views of her cellsand a graph of quantitative results. She placedthis figure in the middle, providing a focus forher oral presentation.

A well-organized poster alone is not enoughto entice passers-by. Bergerts poster, whichearned him a prize at the 2011 EMBO postercompetition, had a hook image to reel peoplein. He repeated a simple, unobtrusive imageof a blebbing cell, the main focus of his poster,several times beneath the title. The imageswere visible from across the room and lured inscientists already interested in blebs and otherpeople intrigued by the blobby cells.

Hook images also provide a visual entry intothe posters research topic. Purrington says thatevery poster should include a hook on the left-hand side to attract visitors who are unfamiliarwith the work and will view it from a fresh per-spective. The image could be a photograph ofthe research organism, a map or a portrait of amathematician, for example. It is worth takingthe time to come up with a creative hook, saysPurrington, who notes that the largest crowdat a Swarthmore College poster session was at achemists poster that featured a photo of a mansuffering from arsenic poisoning.

Presenters should make sure their figures areeasy to interpret from a metre or so away. Axesand labels that have been taken from a previ-ous talk or publication should be adjusted sothat they are easily visible. Arrows and artificial

colours can also be used to highlight a point.Dont be afraid to write on top of a cell, This isthe typical phenotype. Make it as visually clearas possible, says Lenart.

For simplicity, only the most important datapoints should be included in a poster, saysRenato Aguilera, a judge for the ASCB contestand a molecular-cell biologist at the Univer-sity of Texas at El Paso. Have just two lines onyour graph: the control and the most impor-tant result, he says, adding that posters shouldnot force viewers to wade through hundredsof data points.

Finally, a few props can help to engage view-

ers. Bergert showed cell-migration movies on

Choose landscape (horizontal) over

portrait (vertical) orientations.

Follow the recommended dimensions and

instructions. Make sure you allow for white

space and large fonts and images.

Use photographs, cartoons or illustrations

to explain concepts. Limit the word count to

1,000 words.

Take great care in writing the abstract:

conference attendees will identify posters to

visit from the abstract book.

Make the title the punchline of the

research and make it intriguing. Consider

placing an engaging image close by.

Titles and headings should be in a sans-

serif font, such as Helvetica. Other text

should be in a serif font such as Times New

Roman, with a minimum size of 22 points.

Consider short bullet points for methods

and conclusions.

Use black text on a white background. Red

text can be used to draw attention, but avoid

blue and yellow, which are hard to read.

Place figures in an obvious order, and

consider using numbering. Figures should

have a large headline with the main finding.

Enlarge the best piece of data and place it

squarely in the middle at eye level.

Have someone else proofread the text.

Check the poster on a large computer

screen at 100%, then step back half a metre

from the screen.

If possible, project the poster onto a wall

before printing it to check formatting at

actual size.

Take a fine-line marker pen and white

tape with you to the conference to fix any

mistakes that you might have missed.

Dont pin viewers down with an exhaustive

tour of the poster. K.P.

C R E A T I N G A N E Y E - C A T C H I N G P O S T E R

Simple guidelines for poster presentation

Colin Purringtons example of a bad poster is crammed with text and has a distracting background.

C.

PURRINGTON

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an iPad at his poster session. Presenters canalso direct viewers to large audio or videofiles, or to websites with additional data,using Quick Response barcodes that can bescanned by smartphones.

Purrington recommends that postersinclude laminated white space where thepresenter can use a dry-erase marker to gothrough the research model. Get creative, hesays, and have a section called What I needhelp with, or overlap a panel with white tapeso that extra information, such as a controlexperiment or an equations derivation, canbe revealed. Images that dont merit inclu-sion in the main poster can be attached ona ring.

Props can also serve as ice-breakers andattract viewers. No ones ever taken me upon this suggestion, but why not have a pitcherof beer and cups at your poster? says Simon.

CONVERSATIONAL SCIENCEPoster presenters should engage in conver-sations to help solve conundrums in data,get advice on improving the work or formpossible future collaborations. At the ASCBposter session, Gutierrez seemed poised andin control. Her adviser at Rutgers and posterjudge Alex Rodriguez, a cell biologist, whosat nearby, says that adopting an appropri-ate outlook in a poster session can be trickyfor junior researchers. Presenters have tobe confident, but not defensive, and thats adifficult line to ride, especially for young sci-entists, he says. When a viewer challengedGutierrez on her choice of cells, she pushedback in a friendly manner. I hear what youare saying, she responded, but I stil l thinkthis is a good model of wound healing.

Perhaps most important, say judges andexperienced presenters, is that presenterskeep conversations with viewers friendly

and two-way. It is a good idea to prepare

different versions of an oral presentation forcasual passers-by, interested observers andinterested specialists, says Faulkes. Present-ers should practise their story, but not over-rehearse it. You shouldnt give it the sameway twice, he says.

Part of the preparation should be to antici-pate tough questions. As a postdoctoral fel-low, Lenart was caught off-guard when hepresented research that used a proprietarycompound provided by a pharmaceuticalcompany. When people asked how the com-pound worked, he had to answer sheepishlythat he could not say. Lenart advises present-ers to prepare answers or at least goodexcuses for as many questions as they canthink of. Presenters should do practice runsand discuss plans with a supervisor to decidewhat material is too sensitive to be shared.

Joseph Ramahi, the first-place winner ofthe ASCB poster competition and a doctoralstudent in cell biology at the University ofCalifornia, Davis, thinks that his enthusi-asm for presenting posters probably had animpact on the judges. The questions Ivebeen asked from giving posters have helpedmy project to grow, he says. Smile, andthank visitors for coming by, because they are

helping you to get better, and thats a reallyimportant part of science.

Purrington believes that poster sessionsare often under-rated as a place for scientiststo air their half-baked ideas. The best part,he says, is picking other peoples brains aboutwhere a line of research should go next. Ifyou can get people excited enough about yourquestion to want to be your colleague, or togive you a completely different take thatsthe fun of the poster session, he says. It canchange your career.

Kendall Powell is a freelance science writer

based in Lafayette, Colorado.

UNITED STATES

Protect research ideasA proposed US bill requiring allfunded federal-grant applications to beposted on a government website wouldhelp competitors, including non-USscientists and businesses, to poach

innovative research ideas, warns a groupof US universities and scientific andprofessional societies. A letter sent on 15February from the Coalition for NationalScience Funding (CNSF) in WashingtonDC to the US House of Representativesrecommends that the bill requireonly abstracts to be posted. SamuelRankin, associate executive director ofthe American Mathematical Society,a CNSF member, says that publiclyopen proposals would allow anyoneto use researchers ideas in potentialcommercial applications, possibly even

before the researcher can file a patent.Youre giving away a lifetime of work,says Rankin.

Poster presenters should prepare different versions of their talk for passers-by and specialists.

C.

PURRINGTON

ENVIRONMENT

New observatory sitesThe US National Ecological ObservatoryNetwork (NEON) will hire 1520ecologists who will collect ecological andclimatic data, including soil, plant andanimal samples, at three new observatorysites. NEON a continent-wide networkthat will gather data over 30 years on theecological impacts of climate change,invasive species and land-use changes anticipates US$60 million this year fromthe US National Science Foundationto build the observatories. The sites inFlorida, Massachusetts and Colorado areexpected to be completed by late 2013.NEON was established by the US NationalScience Board in 1999 to form a long-termnetwork of ecological monitoring sites.

UNIVERSITIES

Top student cityParis has been named Best Student City2012 by QS Intelligence Unit, a companythat compiles annual world universityrankings. Paris earned the honour in partbecause of research institutions coleNormale Suprieure Paris and colePolytechnique. London was second owingto the research institutions UniversityCollege London and the London Schoolof Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.Boston, Massachusetts, was third thanksto Harvard University and MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, both in

Massachusetts.

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2012 Presentations-Billboard Science