The CEIRR Network took over New York City for the 3rd CEIRR Annual Network Meeting from July 21st-24th. Over 350 members attended the meeting at the New York Academy of Medicine, hosted by the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis and Transmission (CRIPT), to share their research on influenza, SARS-CoV-2, and other emerging viruses with pandemic potential. On the first day, attendees participated in a variety of breakout sessions about data management (led by the iDPCC), scientific communications and outreach (iDPCC), clinical research (NIAID), risk assessment (Emory-CEIRR), and the SAVE Program (SJCEIRR and CRIPT). The first day ended with a Network-wide social and networking session.
Over the next three days of the Annual Network Meeting, more than 50 session speakers shared their research updates based on each of the seven CEIRR Centers’ themes:
- “Infection and immunity in at-risk populations and severe disease” – CIDER
- “Influenza: The virus, the host, and the disease” – CRIPT
- “Influenza virus dynamics, host interactions, and immunity” – Emory-CEIRR
- “Utilizing AI tools to support the CEIRR Network” – iDPCC
- “Respiratory virus infections: linking human surveillance to clinical outcomes” – JH-CEIRR
- “Viral evolution, human immunity, and protection against seasonal and pandemic viral strains” – Penn-CEIRR
- “Emerging pathogens” – SJCEIRR
In addition, trainees and early-career investigators presented over 200 posters and 40 flash talks, split evenly across two sessions. Attendees voted on three categories for poster awards, and the first-place earners were:
- James Ferguson, Andrew Ward lab, Penn-CEIRR – Outstanding Poster (Session A)
- Ivan Tomic, Adriana Tomic lab, JH-CEIRR – Outstanding Poster (Session B)
- Cosette Schneider, Lynda Coughlan lab, CRIPT – Innovation in Research
- Alesandra Rodriguez, Andrew Ward lab, Penn-CEIRR – Best Poster Design
In a long-standing tradition, the scientific research sessions were accompanied by multiple social and networking activities throughout the meeting, including CEIRR trivia, a scavenger hunt, and a networking trading card game. Each attendee earns points for their CEIRR Center by participating in each activity with the goal of winning the Teambuilding Prize. Graduate student Nahara Vargas-Maldonado (Emory-CEIRR) collected the most trading cards, professor and data manager Jessica Kissinger, Ph.D. (CIDER) won the scavenger hunt, and Penn-CEIRR took home the gold in the Center Teambuilding competition.
For additional coverage of the meeting, check out CEIRR Network posts using #ANM2024 on Twitter/X and LinkedIn. We can’t wait for the next successful meeting in 2025 hosted by CIDER!