Post from Delia Fernandez (ESR12)
After the TAPAS Early Spring School, the Maastricht Consensus Conference on Thrombosis (MCCT) followed. Both events took place in Maastricht (NL). These events where a great occasion for all the ESRs to gather again, share the progress of their projects, and welcome some new faces (ESRs Hilaire and Chu). Although short, it prepared us for the first conference for most of us. The Maastricht Consensus Conference on Thrombosis 2019 (MCCT) celebrated its third edition. The theme of this year was “Thrombo-inflammation and cardiovascular disease”, which naturally fits perfectly with the topic of our TAPAS-ITN and therefore with all our projects.
The conference was organized into 4 themes:
- 1. How to handle prevention of coronary thrombosis
2. Peripheral artery disease: a thromboinflammatory disorder?
3. Ischemia-reperfusion injury: implications for stroke and
4. Venous thromboembolism: late complications and association with arterial vascular disease?
All the themes were covered by talks, followed by a workshop. A plenary symposium about the hot topics was held on the last day. Exceptional scientists attended this meeting such as Prof Steve Watson and Dr Wolfgang Bergmeier, to highlight some of them, who gave brilliant talks related to platelet signalling. Not only basic science was covered, but also many clinical scientists presented their research and introduced us to the difficulties of finding the perfect tools to tackle cardiovascular disease in the clinic.
After the talks, a workshop allowed some discussion on the topics presented earlier and it was when the audience had the possibility to ask questions. This made the conference surprisingly interactive and it was here where the active role of the PhD students was highlighted. The PhD students helped the speakers by guiding the discussion and taking the minutes. After the workshop a consensus discussion was held in which the PhD students presented what was discussed in the different workshops. In general, presenting someone’s research work was quite challenging for the PhD students. Nevertheless, it was a magnificent opportunity to meet many researchers from the thrombosis field.
Moreover, the discussion from the workshops, together with the talks, will be combined into a consensus document of the meeting that will be published in an international journal. In the report, the state-of-the-art and the opportunities for further research will be mentioned. The most exciting outcome will be the collaborations generated due to the talks during the meeting between different research groups!
Let’s not forget to include a picture of the ESRs with the Coordinator of the TAPAS-ITN, Prof Steve Watson, taken during one of the coffee breaks.
