Words cannot describe my gratitude for being part of the
1st International Blastocystis Symposium, which was seen through to marvelous success by
Dr Funda Dogruman-Al, her colleagues and students, her professional arrangement committee and the scientific committee, made up by Dr Graham Clark, Dr Kevin Tan, Dr Hisao Yoshikawa, Professor Ibrahim Dogan, Funda Dogruman-Al, and myself.
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| Funda Dogruman-Al in the middle flanked by some of the delegates outside Gazi Hastanesi. |
A total of 70 delegates had registered, comprising 37 national and 33
international attendees. Countries represented included Australia, Japan,
Russia, China, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Spain, France, Denmark, UK, USA, and Mexico.
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| Some of the delegates gathering before the gala dinner. |
A presymposium workshop taking place the day before the launching of the actual symposium focussed on methods for diagnosis and molecular epidemiological studies of
Blastocystis.
The two-day symposium included 13 half-hour lectures, 10 shorter oral presentations, and 27 posters.
Lectures were given by Dr Graham Clark (one of his three talks was on behalf on Prof Andrew Roger and post doc Laura Eme), Dr Kevin Tan, Dr Hisao
Yoshikawa, Dr Philippe Poirier, Dr Özgür Kurt, Dr Javed Jakoob, Dr Funda
Dogruman-Al, and myself, and covered updates on genomics, cell biology,
host-parasite interactions, genetic diversity, epidemiology, clinical significance,
treatment, and methods used for detection and molecular
characterisation.
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| We were spoilt with lots of 'Turkish Delight': Here are some of the dancers performing at the gala dinner. |
There were six prizes in total; three for the best oral presentations
and three for the best posters. Prize money was donated by Elsevier.
The prize winners were as follows:
Oral presentations:
1st Prize: Erdogan Malatyali, Adnan Menderes University, Aydin, Turkey
2nd Prize: Sitara SR Ajjampur, National University of Singapore, Singapore
3rd Prize: Unaiza Parkar, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia
Poster presentations:
1st Prize: John Anthony Yason, National University of Singapore, Singapore
2nd Prize: Joel Martinez-Ocana, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, Mexico
3rd Prize: Chen-Chieh Liao, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Over the next few months, original manuscripts – seminal papers and reviews – will be developed for a special issue on
Blastocystis in of
Parasitology International to mark the event.
An important landmark in
Blastocystis history has been made, and we are already looking into our chances of developing the
2nd International Blastocystis Symposium, which may be in 2017.
A huge THANK YOU to Funda for all her efforts, and KUDOS to all contributors for making this such a fantastic event!
