It is a pleasure for me to be able to announce that Dr. Funda Dogruman-Al and I have started planning
to be held in Ankara, May 28-29 in 2015 under the auspices of Gazi University, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
We have received very positive responses so far from quite a few of the leading scientists in Blastocystis research expressing their interest in the symposium, and obviously our goal is to be able to raise significant and relevant funding to cover at least some of the expenses related to the meeting. Already, a total of € 6,000 has been raised, but we hope for a lot more.
It may seem like a long time ahead, but we believe that by starting this early, we should stand a fair chance of arranging and completing a meeting that will enable a strengthening of global cooperative networks so as to increase the sharing of ideas, data, expertise, and best practices in this field to the mutual benefit of the researchers and organisations involved.
'The 1st International Blastocystis Symposium'
to be held in Ankara, May 28-29 in 2015 under the auspices of Gazi University, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
We have received very positive responses so far from quite a few of the leading scientists in Blastocystis research expressing their interest in the symposium, and obviously our goal is to be able to raise significant and relevant funding to cover at least some of the expenses related to the meeting. Already, a total of € 6,000 has been raised, but we hope for a lot more.
It may seem like a long time ahead, but we believe that by starting this early, we should stand a fair chance of arranging and completing a meeting that will enable a strengthening of global cooperative networks so as to increase the sharing of ideas, data, expertise, and best practices in this field to the mutual benefit of the researchers and organisations involved.
The past few years have seen a substantial surge in Blastocystis research in many areas, and so the main foci of this symposium will be:
- Diagnosis and molecular characterisation
- Epidemiology
- Evolutionary biology and advances in genomics
- Intestinal ecology
- Clinical significance including potential relationship to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
The symposium will also serve as an initial forum to address and discuss critical questions including:
- What is the evidence of Blastocystis pathogenicity?
- If Blastocystis may be pathogenic, what then are the factors involved? Which mechanisms could potentially be involved in the development of disease?
- Could specific host factors be responsible for the development of symptomatic Blastocystis infections, and if so, how can these be identified?
- How can Blastocystis infections be controlled?
- Is there any correlation between the human intestinal microbiota and Blastocystis carriage?
- How can novel technology and multi-disciplinary approaches assist in answering fundamental questions concerning the clinical significance of Blastocystis?
We hope that the symposium will attract not only experts on Blastocystis, but also biologists and medical doctors in the fields of clinical microbiology, infectious diseases, gastroenterology, evolutionary biology, and microbial ecology. Certainly, those who have expressed interest so far cover a wide spectrum of these research areas.
