MPS Conference in Vancouver

My summer can now begin--the presentation is over. And it went quite well, but we'll get to that sooner or later. I want to educate my readers and talk about the rest of the trip as well.
To begin, I should describe MPS. Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) are a group of 7 different lysosomal storage diseases. In essence, they are a group of genetic diseases that leave the affected individuals with insufficient amounts of an enzyme that breaks down complex sugars in their cells. The molecules build up in the cells and cause a wide range to problems that vary greatly, even within the same disease/enzyme deficiency. Clinical features may include coarse facial features, enlarged spleen and/or liver, heart defects, bone deformities, short stature, corneal clouding, umbilical hernias, as well as other problems. Some of the diseases may also have central nervous system involvement, causing loss of speech and mental retardation. Often times the problems do not occur until the child is a few years old (later if the disease is less severe) and because the diseases are rare, they often are not properly diagnosed early. Also devastating is the fact that a second child may be born in the time it takes to properly diagnose, and parents may find themselves with more than one affected child (though most of the MPSs are autosomal recessive, causing 25% of children with carrier parents to be affected, 50% will be carriers, and 25% will be normal). Currently, there is no cure though there are treatments for 3 of the MPSs, though they generally cannot reverse the damage that has already occurred, only slow the progression of the disease. Depending on the disease, the lifespan of an affected individual is usually under 2 decades, though it has improved with treatment. Mild forms may lead to a full life, though this does not seem to be the norm. See the National MPS Society website and the Canadian MPS Society website for more info and to see photos and family stories.
Our laboratory at Iowa State University focuses on MPS IIIA and C and MPS I mainly. My boss (the principal investigator, PI), the lab's post doc, and I went to the 10th International MPS Symposium last week in Vancouver. Rafi, the post doc, was presenting two posters on his IIIB research and I had an oral presentation on the I work that we have been conducting. The funny thing about working in a lab is that although my job is to work with MPS and learn as much as I can about the etiology and work to find treatments, in 6 months of working in the lab I had not met a child or family affected by the diseases. It's hard to appreciate, or rather remember why you're doing what you're doing when you're doing bench work day in and day out. That all changed.
We left out early Wednesday morning and arrived in Vancouver by lunch. After checking in and doing a little rest and work, we met up with some researchers from Adelaide. They were a lot of fun and we hung out with them all week. We went out to eat and explored the city a bit. We took the water taxi to Granville Island which was nice, though most of the stores were closed by the time we made it over there. But it was cute--I loved the little houses down on the water with just small boats to get around. Beautiful.
After walking around a bit that evening and discussing science and travel, we retired to our respective hotels (I was staying in the conference hotel while the guys and Aussies were in one down the street) and crashed for the night. My hotel was supposedly the nice one, though internet in the room was an additional charge (and it wasn't WiFi either). But the beds were amazing!
Here's my hotel--there were 3 towers like this on the block with a cobblestone courtyard beautifully lit at night. It was very swanky.

More on Vancouver and the conference later.