Barcelona hosts the most important European conference on ‘Drosophilaʼ research
From 16 to 19 October, more than 700 international scientists will attend the European Drosophila Research Conference (EDRC 2013), the most important European conference focused on basic and biomedical research that uses the fly fruit, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model system. The biennial conference, which takes place in Barcelonaʼs Palau de Congressos, includes 7 plenary lectures, 300 talks, 20 sessions and 400 posters. “The European scientific community has been recommending Barcelona as the host site for this conference for some years. The number of participants has nearly doubled since the last edition; that proves the attractiveness of the field and Barcelonaʼs powerful cluster”, affirms the organizing committee, composed of scientists from the University of Barcelona, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The 2011 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Jules Hoffmann, from the University of Strasbourg, will open the meeting with the plenary lecture “Innate immunity: from fly to humans”.
From 16 to 19 October, more than 700 international scientists will attend the European Drosophila Research Conference (EDRC 2013), the most important European conference focused on basic and biomedical research that uses the fly fruit, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model system. The biennial conference, which takes place in Barcelonaʼs Palau de Congressos, includes 7 plenary lectures, 300 talks, 20 sessions and 400 posters. “The European scientific community has been recommending Barcelona as the host site for this conference for some years. The number of participants has nearly doubled since the last edition; that proves the attractiveness of the field and Barcelonaʼs powerful cluster”, affirms the organizing committee, composed of scientists from the University of Barcelona, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The 2011 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Jules Hoffmann, from the University of Strasbourg, will open the meeting with the plenary lecture “Innate immunity: from fly to humans”.
Hoffmann was awarded the Nobel Prize, together with Bruce A. Beutler and Ralph M. Steinman, for their discoveries on the activation of innate immunity, which has allowed scientists to develop new methods to fight disease, including the latest generation vaccines or cancer therapies based on immune system activation. Their discoveries are essential to understand the occurrence of autoimmune diseases —when an organismʼs own immune system attacks itself, for example in type 1 diabetes— and to open new paths for alternative treatments.
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