Final Meeting of the EVIDENT consortium

October 19, 2016

The Final Meeting of the EVIDENT consortium took place at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (FORTH-IMBB) just outside of Heraklion (Greece) from October 5 to 6, 2016. The warm and sunny weather on the historic island Crete provided the perfect setting in order to look back on the project and to summarise the achieved results.

Welcomed by the director of the IMBB, Prof. Nektarios Tavernarakis and by the EVIDENT coordinator Prof. Stephan Günther, the partners presented their scientific, dissemination and management results in each work package: In the course of the project the wide range of neutralising response and its implications for preselection for plasma therapy were identified, predictors of poor outcome in relation to clinical chemistry were demonstrated, and interesting data regarding the evolution of virus variability was produced. Furthermore, the work focused on immune activation and on viral shedding. The project partners are also proud of the numerous dissemination activities, amongst them the publication of articles in scientific journals, for example in Nature.

The EVIDENT Scientific Advisor, Prof. Anne Johnson congratulated the consortium on the impressive findings of the project and praised the collaboration between epidemiologists, laboratory and clinical scientists. She also pointed out the necessity of a clear plan to ensure that the results achieve maximum impact in the clinical and public health community so that the findings can be applied in future outbreaks. Accordingly, one part of the meeting was dedicated to the discussion of open issues and outcomes still in preparation in respective work group sessions. The project partners also thought about possibilities to exploit the achievements further, for example by future collaborations. The meeting ended with an insightful lab tour at the institute.

The EVIDENT consortium looks back on a successful project, with publications in renowned journals, and thanks all participants as well as the wonderful host for a productive final meeting.

Following the final meeting, Prof. Stephan Günther (Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine) and Prof. Miles Carroll (Public Health England) gave lectures on their research at the FORTH-IMBB. You can access the video of both presentations here.