As we enter 2022, I believe all of us, in some way, have an opportunity to reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and start planning for the next. Throughout 2021, we witnessed the scientific community’s ability to adjust and adapt, both inside and outside the lab. Research facilities - academic and industrial - continued scientific growth, while ensuring the health and safety of their staff and making the most of virtual/remote tools. We at Transonic have strived to do the same by developing matching remote support and furthering our educational content. As an example, we started a remote surgical training program that allows our application support team to provide surgical guidance and also view our client’s progress virtually. We also completed our 11th client-lead webinar in 2021 with the topic of artificial organ engineering. This series strives to provide high value scientific information related to best practices in the lab and the latest in scientific advancements. You can view all our past webinars here. From these experiences, we have also identified a suite of educational tools we believe to be useful to our clients, such as a library of surgical videos that is currently underway.

Virtual vs. in-person continues to be a moving target in our community as we move into 2022. Scientific conferences have been embracing the virtual concept as travel restrictions still apply and this brings with it its own challenges. The virtual format is by definition more flexible as attendees can watch content live or on demand, not having to account for logistics and expenses related to a trip that can be prohibitive to many. On the other side of the same coin, in-person formats bring a more dynamic environment, where attendees are immersed in the conference community and events, having a unique chance to network and cultivate past and future connections.

For the past 37 years, we have been embracing in-person conferences and this brings me to an important milestone at Transonic this year, the final Experimental Biology (EB) meeting. EB has been the life science conference to attend for more than 25 years. With so many participating societies, it has been one of the largest international meetings for basic science with participants flying in from all over the world. However, all good things come to an end and so too will EB. With the cancelation of the 2020 annual meeting happening mere weeks prior to the scheduled date - followed by the 2021 meeting being held virtually - the announcement that the final 2022 edition would be held in-person came as welcomed news to the community. We have been attending the conference as both exhibitors and authors for many successful years and look forward to the opportunity to interact with our clients at this show one more time in April. We hope to see you there. As we look to 2022 more generally, we look forward to sharing exciting news with you in the months ahead – stay tuned for that. We also are optimistic that this year could mark the beginning of a renormalization, albeit a slow one, that will bring with it new opportunities for learning and growth. We look forward to helping to shape or community further and wish you nothing but happiness, health and success throughout.