Ecraid at ECCMID 2023: Wrapping up a successful participation
The 33rd ECCMID saw Ecraid’s inaugural exhibition booth and two events co-organised by Ecraid and ESCMID: a second edition of the Young Investigator Meeting and an open forum on adaptive platform trials. We also unveiled COMBACTE's final magazine and had our CEO and CEO speak at a high level AMR meeting.
This year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases took place from 15–18 April in Copenhagen, Denmark. Tens of thousands of academia, healthcare, industry and state representatives converged on the Danish capital for four days of scientific endeavour, with many more attending hybrid events from home.
Many stopped by Ecraid’s booth which distinguished itself with a homey, inviting design. Our team featuring clinical and laboratory network representatives, operational team members and communications specialists was eager to talk to any curious visitor. Ecraid CEO Marc Bonten and our Business Development team were also on site and held productive meetings with existing and potential partners.
In the photo below: Just a few of our team members who were welcoming visitors at Ecraid's booth.
Young investigator meeting
There is no better way to ensure the future of clinical research than engaging those who will conduct it. After last year’s successful Young Investigator Meeting, the team behind it returned for a second round. It was equally successful with over 50 participants on site and another 30 following the live stream from home.
The team used the same tested and proven formula that includes plenty of opportunities for interaction with the audience, such as online quizzes and discussions of participants’ own experiences. They paid extra attention to platform studies because of their potential to solve many of the issues infectious diseases researchers currently face.
Yrene Themistocleous (Oxford, UK), who is part of the POS-ARI-ER study team, was happy with the end result: “The participants were very involved, and we covered so much content. I wish we had more time to delve deeper into the many interesting topics we touched upon.”
The multi-national team of experienced researchers also included Alike van der Velden (Utrecht, the Netherlands), Ana C Hernandez (Limoges, France), Fabiana Arieti (Verona, Italy), Majella Ding (Basel, Switzerland), Marc Shamier (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and Marlieke de Kraker (Geneva, Switzerland).
Left: The workshop's organising team poses with some of the participants.
Open forum on adaptive platform trials
Adaptive platform trials (APT) are a novel approach to clinical research in infectious diseases that promises multiple advantages over traditional randomised trials. Four leading infectious diseases experts with experience with APTs presented important insights in a completely full arena-like setting.
Lennie Derde (Utrecht, Netherlands) summarised the principles of APTs and spoke about the achievements of the ground-breaking REMAP-CAP trial, which fellow speaker Chris Butler (Oxford, United Kingdom) called “probably one of the most important clinical trials ever conducted”. She emphasised that REMAP-CAP is not a COVID-19 trial and that it has a bright, long future beyond the pandemic.
Chris followed with a presentation on ECRAID-Prime. Still in development, this EU-funded APT is the first one in Europe to focus on the primary care setting. The Oxford professor explained why this novel approach is so suitable for research in primary care and stressed on the fact that it aims to be assessing treatments for COVID-19-like infections with pandemic potential.
EU-SolidAct Principal Investigator Marius Trøseid (Oslo, Norway) talked about establishing this international platform trial during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also paid attention to challenges and possibilities that come with piacebo-controlled study design with biobanking, as well as coordination with other trials.
In the photo: Marius Trøseid presents the EU-SolidAct adaptive platform trial.
Finally, having travelled all the way from Melbourne, Australia, Steven Tong gave an illuminating presentation on the Staphylococcus aureus Network Adaptive Platform (SNAP). He outlined the design of the trial and provided an update on enrolment, challenges to date, and future directions.
A high-level event
A day before ECCMID’s official kick-off, Global Leaders Group (GLG) and ESCMID hosted a forum in which policymakers and distinguished scientists engaged in key antimicrobial resistance (AMR) issues and forged partnerships between science and policy.
Heads of government, ministers and members of the Danish royal family joined a group of renowned scientists that included Ecraid CEO Marc Bonten (Utrecht, the Netherlands) and our newly appointed CSO Evelina Tacconelli (Verona, Italy). Marc gave a presentation on catalysing innovation and access to AMR diagnostics, stressing that we urgently need to make such diagnostics rapid and widely available around the world. Meanwhile, Evelina focused on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as lessons we knew well before that but never implemented in policy.
Later, Marc and Evelina appeared on ECCMID 2023 TV to discuss this important event. Watch the interview here.
10 years of COMBACTE
Visitors at the Ecraid booth were treated to a very special gift – a copy of COMBACTE’s final magazine. This year, the EU-funded project celebrates a decade of state-of-the-art clinical research, and the magazine highlights the impact it has had over the years.
Starting with a foreword by Irene Norstedt who heads the European Commission's Research and Innovation department, the edition features insightful interviews and statistics, as well as a look at the project’s legacy that is preserved and built-upon at Ecraid.
In case you’ve missed to grab a copy, read the digital version here.