By Qifeng Lin
Editor
If you are a SSMS member and searching for funding opportunities to attend conferences, look no further. As part of ongoing efforts to promote scientific learning and mass spectrometry training, SSMS offers travel awards to fund members, especially young scientists, to attend MS-related regional and international conferences. Students and postdoctoral fellows are eligible to apply for up to SGD500 each for the Asia-Oceania Mass Spectrometry Conferences (AOMSC). For all other members, up to SGD500 each is available for regional conferences, while applicants for international conferences are eligible for up to SGD1000 each.
Last year, the SSMS Travel Award was awarded to Yew Mun Lee, a research fellow from the Department of Biological Sciences (National University of Singapore), who presented his work in the Asia Oceania Human Proteome Organization (AOHUPO) conference in Japan.
"I was privileged to be awarded the travel award by the Singapore Society for Mass Spectrometry (SSMS) to attend the 9th Asia Oceania Human Proteome Organization Conference under the joint conference on Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics 2018 in Osaka, Japan. The beauty of attending international conferences lies with reaping twice the rewards. Firstly, it allows one to communicate and exchange intellectual information with like minded researchers from your field of research. Secondly, it provides one the chance for exposure to the cultural aspect of the country hosting the conference. Having not visited this part of the world before, I was blessed to have met many wonderful Japanese at the conference and beyond. I’m delighted with the new scientific knowledge I had picked up from the conference, as well as the good break away from the sample processing and the ion spectra I see frequently. Henceforth, despite the need to leave your work and travel out of the country, it is a worthwhile experience. Being a member of the SSMS, I was made aware of this travel award that could help alleviate part of the travelling cost for the conference trip. As travelling cost is always a consideration for scientists wanting to travel out to conferences, the availability of this travel award made my decision more straightforward. From a scientist point of view, conferences would no doubt extend your horizon on the knowledge in your field of research, and the necessary break would provide a much-needed respite for more future hours in the laboratory. So, do take the opportunity with the SSMS travel award and start planning for your next conference!”