ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
It is our pleasure to announce 'The 2nd International Blastocystis Conference' to be held in Bogotá, Colombia at Oct 11-12th in 2018 under the auspices of The Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Direction of Investigations and Innovation from Universidad del Rosario, Genproducts S.A.S. and Annar Diagnostisca S.A.
The past few years have seen a substantial surge in Blastocystis research in many areas, and so the main foci of this conference will be:
- Diagnosis and molecular characterisation
- Epidemiology
- Evolutionary biology and advances in genomics
- Intestinal ecology (microbiomes)
- Clinical significance including potential relationship to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS):
The Conference will also serve as an initial forum to address and discuss critical questions including:
- What is the evidence of Blastocystis pathogenicity?
- If Blastocystis may be pathogenic, what then are the factors involved? Which mechanisms could potentially be involved in the development of disease?
- Could specific host factors be responsible for the development of symptomatic Blastocystis infections, and if so, how can these be identified?
- How can Blastocystis infections be controlled?
- Is there any correlation between the human intestinal microbiota and Blastocystis carriage?
- How can novel technology and multi-disciplinary approaches assist in answering fundamental questions concerning the clinical significance of Blastocystis?
We hope that the Conference will attract not only experts on Blastocystis, but also biologists and medical doctors in the fields of clinical microbiology, infectious diseases, gastroenterology, evolutionary biology, and microbial ecology. Certainly, those who have expressed interest so far cover a wide spectrum of these research areas.
There will be a two-day Blastocystis workshop which will be held at Oct 9-10th and will cover conventional diagnosis, molecular diagnosis, molecular epidemiology, microbiota profiling and comparative genomics.
We are looking very much forward to seeing you in Bogotá in 2018!
Our warmest regards,
Scientific committee
Juan David Ramírez, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia.
Rune Stensvold, Statens Serum Institut, Denmark.
Funda Dogruman-Al, University of Gazi, Turkey.