The 9th International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases was held March 9-13, 2014 in Hyderabad, India. The symposium, held biannually, brings together the world’s experts in pneumococcal biology, diagnostics, treatment, and prevention in a multidisciplinary forum to make strides to reduce the burden of disease caused by pneumococci.
LSTM’s Professor Stephen Gordon, Dr. Daniela Ferreira, and Miss Jenna Gritzfeld from the Respiratory Infection Group at LSTM were in attendance with both Dr. Ferreira and Miss Gritzfeld receiving travel grants to attend. There were also members from the Malawi side of the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust in attendance.
The Respiratory Infection Group at LSTM has the only Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage model in the world and were at the conference to present the most recent findings from the project. Miss Gritzfeld participated in an oral poster session and Professor Gordon participated in a panel discussion on who gets the disease and why, with the focus of his lecture on the influence of environmental factors on susceptibility to pneumococcal disease.
Attending ISPPD for the third time, Dr. Ferreira accepted the Robert Austrian Research Award in Pneumococcal Vaccinology on behalf of her collaborators at the Butantan Institute in Brazil. Dr. Ferreira said “ISPPD provides an excellent platform for developing international collaborations. Being acknowledged at such an international event for the work we have been doing on developing novel pneumococcal protein vaccines was a great honor”.
The next ISPPD meeting will be in held in Glasgow, 26 - 30 June, 2016.