Quite an exitement for most of our group - the first weekend of April was dedicated to IN PERSON conferences. Due to our beloved global pandemic most conferences were cancelled or held as an online version since 2020. For some of our group these were the first in person conferences they have ever attended – how exciting!
Our group split up into two camps – one attending the Marburger Ophthalmologischer Disput and one attending the ProRetina conference in Potsdam.
MARBURGER OPHTHALMOLOGISCHER DISPUT
Where? Marburg, Germany
What? MOD – Marburger Opthalmologischer Disput
Who? Diana, Larissa, Stella, Melanie
Contributions? A great talk by Diana about the evolvement of age-related macular degeneration.
MOD deals with general, but recent evolvements in the most prevalent eye diseases seen in the clinic. Many experts contribute with fascinating talks about various hot topics in clinical diagnostics, treatment options and disease mechanisms.
PRORETINA CONFERENCE 2022
Where? Potsdam, Germany
What? ProRetina Conference
Who? Pratiti, Juliane, Vero, Hannah
Contributions? Pratiti, Juliane and Hannah presented their recent findings on the role of complement and inflammation in retinal celltypes and retinal explant models and the relevance of phage display methodology in identifying FHR-related protein biomarkers in complement-mediated disease.
The ProRetina conference in Potsdam is organized by the ProRetina Foundation. The foundation encourages researchers in the eye field to bring forward basic research in prevalent eye diseases. This year we wanted to contribute personally and connect with other researchers in the field.
During a very nice swinging poster session – meaning live swing music and a glass of wine – how cool! – Pratiti, Juliane and Hannah presented their recent findings and discussed them with fellow researchers. Meanwhile Vero reported about the conference on the SPP twitter account to make the conference contributions open to everyone.
Hot topics on this years ProRetina conference were (i) retinal organoids – small, from stem cells derived in vitro cultivated retinae and their relevance in basic research in eye diseases and (ii) gene therapy using adeno-associated virus (AAV) constructs - AAV are viruses that can transport a specific gene to distinct cell types to regulate respective protein expression by a celltype.
I guess I am speaking for the whole group when I say that we really enjoyed the IN PERSON conferences and are excited to travel to Bern in August for the EMCHD - European Meeting on Complement in Human Disease!
Hannah