Wrap-up of 3rd International Blastocystis Conference

The 3rd International Blastocystis Conference took place Wednesday-Friday last week.

Organising committee:

• Anastasios (Tasos) Tsaousis 
• Eleni Gentekaki
• Chr. Rune Stensvold
• Funda Dogruman-Al

 Scientific committee:

• Kevin S W Tan
• Özgür Kurt
• Eleni Gentekaki 
• Chr. Rune Stensvold
• Funda Dogruman-Al
• Anastasios (Tasos) Tsaousis
  

 Sponsors included 

• Microbiology Society
• Biology - MDPI
• PCR Biosystems
  

The conference was facilitated by Top Kinisis

The conference in numbers:

•  3-day conference
• 73 attendees
• 29 countries represented
• 66 abstracts
• 38 oral presentations
• 28 poster presentations
• 265 tweets using #Blastocystis21 as hashtag
• 3 awards
  

Awards:

Blastocystis Quiz Award: Mark van der Giezen (@MitoRem)

Poster Award: Adriana Marcela Higuera Gelvez (Draft genomes of Blastocystis isolates from human samples in Bogotá, Colombia)

Oral Presentation:

• Winner: Jamie Newton (Investigating the metabolic fluctuations of the human gut during Blastocystis infection)
  
• 1st runner-up: Lei Deng (Experimental colonization with Blastocystis ST4 is associated with protective immune response and modulation of gut microbiome in a DSS-induced colitis mouse model)
  
• 2nd runner-up: Zuzana Lhotska and Vincent Billy (back-to-back presentations: Blastocystis colonization alters host immune response and gut microbiome, part a and b, respectively)
  

A special issue 'Putting Blastocystis on the Spot: Examining the Biology, Ecology and Epidemiology of a controversial gut microbe' has been launched in Frontiers. This Research Topic is linked to the conference. You can go here for more information.

The 4th International Blastocystis Conference is planned to take place in Chania, Crete, Greece in 2024.

Last, but not least a couple of screen capture impressions from the conference:

I will be back shortly with more updates from the conference.

R