Yes, it is true! Things happen all the time but what we remember is our "first time" like the first day at work or the first trip alone. This brings to sharing my first experience of disseminating science at a conference, with a huge audience (~1000 participants), composed of distinguished people from science. It was a great privilege to be part of Plant Biology Europe EPSO/FESPB 2016 Congress held in the beautiful city of Prague, Czech Republic. It is the second year of my PhD, when I got the opportunity to present my work of developing a mathematical framework to understand the biosynthesis of an important plant's secondary metabolite called "Glucosinolates". Glucosinolates are highly diverse-class of bio-active compounds, found in plants like broccoli, mustard and plant-scientist's pet, "Arabidopsis". It facilitates plant's defence against pathogens and also possess anti-cancer properties in humans. A question, "how these diverse class of compounds are produced and regulated?" has been boggling minds of plant-scientists for many years now. Importantly, the link between the genotype and the metabolic phenotype is poorly understood. Aptly using the given honour to speak about my approach of addressing the question, I highlighted the fact "why there is a need of having a theoretical model?". Additionally, with my mathematical model, I explained how the differences at genomic level within a particular species leads to different metabolic phenotypes. It was intimidating to have "Glucosinolate Queen", the lady who pioneered the glucosinolate research, and other distinguished people from the field interested in your way of understanding and doing the research. With the appraisals, comments and suggestions I received, I continue my PhD journey.
Every "first-time" brings a memory and experience and this experience from my first conference talk has surely boosted my enthusiasm for future endeavours. Looking forward to many more first times.
