Figure 1.
Participants to the 3rd edition of the joint AGLA and CVBG meeting.
Figure 1.
Participants to the 3rd edition of the joint AGLA and CVBG meeting.
Two Working Groups of the Swiss Society of Cardiology, the Swiss Atherosclerosis Society (AGLA) and the Working Group for Cardiovascular Biology (CVBG), recently organised the annual Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research Conference on the 10th and the 11th of January 2014 in Fribourg. Almost 100 participants contributed to the meeting by showing their latest results on the following topics:
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HDL and cardiovascular disease;
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From progenitors to prevention;
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Cardiac physiology and pathology;
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Atherosclerosis and thrombosis.
The scientific program consisted of four plenary and two poster sessions with presentations selected from the submitted abstracts by the scientific boards of the working groups. In addition, four keynote speakers gave intriguing lectures: Ulf Landmesser from Zürich discussed interesting basic science and clinical studies focusing on endothelial dysfunction; Georg Ehret from Geneva showed his fascinating work on blood pressure genomics; Eric Raddatz from Lausanne displayed his elegant ex vivo embryonic heart model and Stephanie Dimmeler from Frankfurt presented captivating work on the role of microRNAs in cardiovascular diseases. Both clinical researchers as well as basic scientists attended the meeting. This mixed professional background of the participants resulted in many interesting discussions after the oral presentations but also during the poster sessions. Finally, prizes were awarded to the best oral communication and best 3 posters. Jérôme Lugrin from Lausanne won the best oral presentation prize for his presentation entitled “Necrotic cardiomyocytes release soluble pro-inflammatory molecules inducing MyD88-dependent inflammatory responses in cardiac fibroblasts.” A jury composed of young postdocs and PhD students assigned the poster prizes. The prize for best poster was given to Elena Groppa from Basel for her poster on EphrinB2/EphrinB4 signalling in angiogenesis, and runner-ups for the poster prizes were Filippo Molica from Geneva who described an inhibiting role for a novel membrane channel in platelet aggregation as well as Melroy Miranda with a poster on atheroprotection by the Sirt1 activator SRT3025. All in all, the lively discussions, broad set of topics and the high quality of the submitted abstracts and presentations ensured that the meeting was highly successful.
One of the main goals of our working groups is to provide an open forum for cardiovascular scientists. With that in mind it was particularly pleasant to note the informal character of the meeting. This informal atmosphere warranted that also younger scientists actively participated to the discussions during the poster sessions but also following the always interesting, and sometimes provocative, invited lecturers. Given the fact that one of the other main goals of our working groups is to promote and enhance education for young scientists, we are obviously very happy with their active participation and will warmly welcome it in the future.
The meeting was sponsored by (in alphabetical order) Abbott, Abcam, Alere, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Pfizer, Sanofi and VisualSonics. Evidently, the working groups are very grateful for their generous gifts. The sponsors’ charity permitted keeping the registration fee limited, thereby especially allowing the young presenting scientists and clinicians to join the meeting at a reduced fee. We also like to extend our special thanks to Prof. Zhihong Yang and his team at the University of Fribourg for hosting the conference.
Finally, we are happy to announce that the next Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research Meeting will again be a two-day event held in Fribourg on January 22–23, 2015. We have already started with the organisation of this event and hope to put together a similarly exciting program. We look forward to seeing you all there!
