Each year, the Departments of Medicinal Chemistry of the Universities of Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Illinois at Chicago participate in the Medicinal Chemistry Meeting-in-Miniature, better known as the "MIKI" meeting. This meeting is organized by graduate students at the host university and has traditionally been one of the most successful regional meetings in Medicinal Chemistry.
The 2012 meeting marked the 50th Anniversary MIKI Meeting, and was hosted by the University of Iowa, where the meeting began in 1963. The approximately 180 attendees attended various educational sessions, heard from keynote speaker Heidi Hamm, PhD, Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and shared research findings with their peers.
Laurie Eckert, MIKI committee co-chair, reflected on the significance of hosting the commemorative meeting, “I think the most beneficial part of this special meeting was the opportunity for people to think about the last 50 years of MIKI and how they are a part of that large history of the meeting. As one faculty member pointed out, there are easily 1,000 medicinal chemists out in the wider scientific world that have all attended and been a part of MIKI meetings, which is an incredible network for us as students and even the faculty to belong to.”
For more information on this year’s event, or to find out more about the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy’s Medicinal and Natural Products Chemistry Division, please visit their website.