The ISIDORe Scientific Conference was held on May 28, 2024, at the Hotel nhow Brussels Bloom and online. The event aimed to highlight research by users of ISIDORe services and featured keynote speakers in pandemic response and preparedness.
After a welcome and introduction by Jonathan Ewbank, head of ERINHA who organized the meeting, Bart Haagmans of Erasmus University Medical Centre gave an informative keynote on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. He emphasized the need for more basic virology research to improve our understanding of virus evolution. Subsequent sessions supported by the UK-ICN included user presentations on ongoing research related to COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, ranging from social sciences to diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
The poster session, which extended into the lunch break, provided an opportunity for attendees to engage with additional ongoing research projects. After lunch, Kerstin Fischer from the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute delivered a keynote on RG4 pathogens, emphasizing strategies to better detect these pathogens in the wild before they reach human populations. Her talk was followed by a presentation proposing to target host cholesterol metabolism to inhibit the replication of CCHF viruses.
In the afternoon, Remi Charrel, presenting online from Aix-Marseille Université, gave an overview of arboviruses, highlighting their diversity as they share various arthropods as hosts. Related user presentations underscored the concern about the CCHF virus, already present in ticks in several European countries, causing 4 deaths out of 12 infected in Spain over the past 10 years. Another point of vigilance is that climate change extends the period during which mosquitoes (and associated pathogens) are active. This session also featured Pablo Suarez Cortés’ results on imaging the malaria parasite using 3D electron microscopy.
The final keynote was given by Antoine Gessain from Institut Pasteur on MPox. This reminded the audience that when the Mpox outbreak appeared in Europe in May 2022, a research call on Mpox was launched within ISIDORe the following month. Fortunately, the R0 of Mpox is 0.6-1 (2-3 within Men Having Sex with Men clusters), and the European outbreak ceased in August 2022. However, this is not the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where hundreds still die from Mpox each year. Ongoing research on this and other topics was subsequently highlighted by the final user presentations.
The conference concluded at 6 PM and was followed by a highly appreciated networking evening and dinner. The event successfully facilitated knowledge exchange and highlighted significant advancements in pandemic research, aligning with ISIDORe‘s goals of enhancing preparedness and response to infectious diseases.
Presentations
Replay the conference and each presentation online on the YT channel below (if the video does not display, please accept cookies or follow this link).