For the upcoming ECTS Congress 2023 in Liverpool, the ECTS Academy is excited to be organizing a number of events for delegates. Several are tailored for early career investigators, but we will also offer others where all delegates are invited to participate. The ECTS Academy events will take place both during the Main Congress from April 15th-18th 2022, as well as during the Pre-Congress on April 14th 2022.
During the Pre-Congress Day (April 14th), the ECTS Academy will organize the Open Forum on Animal Models to study cellular crosstalk (from 16.30 to 18.30). Traditionally, this session (open to all ECTS delegates) attracts an enthusiastic audience keen to learn about and discuss animal models in musculoskeletal research. Ryan Chai from Garvan Institute of Medical Research will give an overview on myeloma dormancy-microenvironment cross talk and mouse models, while Saravana Ramasamy from MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences will give his best advice on studying cellular crosstalk in vascular niches. Finally, Olaia Naveiras from Université de Lausanne will enlighten us on animal models to study hematopoietic cells and their interaction with the bone marrow stroma. Additionally, submitted abstracts will be selected for an oral presentation. We are confident that this Open Forum will stimulate vibrant discussion on basic and translational aspects of bone research.
Furthermore, during the Pre-Congress day (18.45 to 20.45) the Next Generation Synergy session will take place, and will be open to all delegates. Together with representatives from other early career investigator societies in the musculoskeletal field we will explore how they organize themselves and work together to promote their research and clinical activities. We will host a panel discussion with representatives from the Italian Society for Osteoporosis, Mineral Metabolism and Skeletal Diseases Young Committee (Maria Materozzi), the International Society for Children’s Bone Health (Adalbert Raimann) and the Bone Research Society (Scott Dillon). We will discuss how to face challenges in professional bone societies such as balancing clinical and basis aspects, keeping members engaged, and how to connect with early career investigators more broadly. Hopefully, hearing about each other’s societies will inspire new ideas and initiatives and will certainly lead to new future collaborations!
During the main Congress on April 16th (19:00 to 20:00), the Academy will host the New Investigator Mentoring session, where six highly esteemed mentor scientists will share their experience and thoughts on diverse topics including ‘Publishing’ by Moustapha Kassem, ‘Transition to independence’ by Hanna Taipaleenmaki, ‘Bench to bedside and back’ by Nicola Napoli, ‘How to improve your academic profile’ by Melanie Haffner-Luntzer, and ‘How to pitch your PhD project’ by Andy Goebel. As always this will be a very interactive, useful and fun event aimed at early career investigators!
On April 17th (19:00 to 20:00), the New Investigator Seminar and Gathering event will take place and all delegates are welcome to attend. During this interactive session, the six highest ranking basic and clinical abstracts from new investigators will be selected, and the selected delegates will present their data during an oral seminar, followed by live questions from the audience.
The Academy will also organize a Poster Focus event during the congress where selected early career basic/translational and clinical investigators will have an opportunity to present their poster activities with a short oral summary within a very friendly environment, followed by active discussion with the audience.
The ECTS Academy is also organizing a charity event in support of the Paget’s Association (https://paget.org.uk/), a Manchester-based charity supporting people with Paget’s Disease which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023. Participants will have a chance to play darts, a pub game which attracts over 10,000 spectators to major tournaments shown on UK television. All scoring is automatic and instructions are given, just turn up ready to throw! In exchange for a donation to the charity, participants will have 60 minutes to play darts with other delegates and food will be provided.
We are looking forward to meeting you all during the conference and we hope we will be able to create an interesting program for everyone, particularly the early career investigators! So please keep an eye out for updates on these and our other initiatives!