Marie Kerbeshian, vice president of technology commercialization at Indiana University Research and Technology Corp., is leading workshops and speaking at international conferences April 14-29 in China. She shares her thoughts about her final stop: Dalian, Liaoning Province, where she spoke at the BIG Life Sciences’ seventh annual World DNA and Genome Day.
There were a lot of positive interactions from my talk at the conference. Several European faculty approached me to discuss Spin Up, IURTC’s start up support program. I spent hours after the talk chatting with company representatives about Indiana University technologies as well as general comments about university/industry licensing. I even met a researcher from the University of North Texas who had been post-docs with one of our IU inventors and who knew my former post-doc advisor, even though I haven’t run an experiment in over 18 years!
Today was a beautiful, clear day to spend touring in the region. I attended a cherry blossom festival an hour away on the edge of one of the region’s mountains. There were thousands of blooming trees, plus forsythia and lilacs everywhere. Our tour group also visited a mock 1930s village used for TV and movie sets and, sadly, a very real Russian prison expanded by the Japanese in the early 1900s.
We drove along the Coastal Road and crossed a brand new 6 km bridge built to connect downtown to the new high-tech software park. Then up the city’s highest mountain to view the surrounding area. We finished at Bangchui Island, the beach retreat where President Nixon stayed during his famous trip to China in 1973. The beach was a beautiful stone beach with brides being photographed along its length. I dipped my fingers in the Yellow Sea, and ended up desperately twirling my arms to avoid falling in.
Tomorrow I leave the hotel in Dalian at 5:30 a.m. to catch a flight to Beijing. My flight isn’t until 9 a.m., but traffic can be that bad in the morning. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading some about my travels through China!
Leave a Reply