BSP/BSPP/NVP Spring Meeting, Manchester, UK, 15-17 April 2019 

Dimitri Bulte

Laboratory of Microbiology, Parasitology and Hygiene (LMPH),  

University of Antwerp, Belgium 

The BSP spring meeting organized in Manchester was the first joint event of the British Society for Parasitology (BSP), the Belgian Society of Parasitology and Protistology (BSPP) and the Netherlands Society for Parasitology (NVP) and about 200 participants attended this meeting. Our lab (Laboratory for Microbiology, Parasitology and Hygiene) was well represented with two oral presentations, four posters and three poster pitch presentations. The focus of the meeting was divided in four main topics being Cell Biology, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Human Interventions and Ecology and Ecosystems. I presented my work ‘Miltefosine restores the infectivity of miltefosine resistant Leishmania parasites by attenuating the innate immune response’ as a poster preceded by a poster pitch presentation during the Host-Pathogen interactions session and I received a poster prize for best poster.

The conference was attended by many recognized experts in the field of parasitology of which some leading experts in the field of Leishmania and so I was excited to present some of my results to this audience. I received a lot of positive feedback on my research and a lot of people were interested in the techniques I used in my research which lead to some interesting discussions. The conference also organized some network moments like the conference dinner and a ‘young parasitologists party’ where there was room to share thoughts and insights with other scientists but luckily also room for relaxation.

I would recommend this meeting to other PhD students as this is an ideal platform to meet other scientist in the field of parasitology and gain international visibility.