12 Nov 2014
The Weurman Flavour Symposium is held once every three years and has become one of the most important international meetings for reporting recent discoveries in flavour sciences, keeping flavour chemistry at the core while addressing the other scientific areas used to study flavour. I attended the 14th Weurman Flavour Research Symposium at Queens College Cambridge, UK from 15 - 19 September 2014. Major topics covered included flavour discovery, flavour generation, flavour perception, flavour effects on the body and flavour in food products.
Attending the symposium gave me the opportunity to present initial results from my PhD research in a poster format which was very important to me as a first year PhD student. My research focuses on the effect of processing on flavour profile of different cabbage varieties and the effect on consumer acceptance.
Throughout the conference, there were plenty of opportunities for me to discuss my research with other scientists in the field who provided me with feedback and suggestions that will help improve the quality of my research. As I am still in the early stages of my research, listening to several talks gave me the opportunity to improve my knowledge in my research area especially in the type of analytical methods that would best suit my research.
I was happy to have attended this meeting because it provided me with the opportunity to hear about the latest findings and trending topics in flavour research as well as what industries are interested in at the moment. It also provided me an opportunity to learn and improve on my presentation skills both for oral and poster presentation.
The venue of the conference also provided me an opportunity to learn about history and I was opportune to see where DNA was discovered among many other interesting facts. The conference was not all books as we had the opportunity of going punting, which I found particularly interesting. It afforded me the chance to see all the other Cambridge University colleges and appreciate the architectural work as well as the history surrounding all the colleges.
I am very grateful to SCI for awarding me the AJ Banks Bursary to attend this conference. This bursary gave me the opportunity to attend an important flavour conference which has contributed in a great way to my research.
Oloyede Omobolanle,
University of Reading
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