The 25th International Annual Congress of the World Muscle Society (WMS) was held between 28 September and 2 October. Originally scheduled to take place in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, it was transformed into a virtual event amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Here Kate Adcock, Director of Research and Innovation, describes her experiences.
The WMS congress is a multidisciplinary scientific meeting to advance and share knowledge in the neuromuscular field. It provides opportunities for students, postdoctoral fellows and early-career researchers to present research findings and for attendees to engage in discussions and establish new collaborations.
The meeting itself consisted of panel discussions, lectures and poster presentations accessed through a ‘virtual conference centre’. In addition, there were a range of interesting industry-sponsored discussions.
The Congress started with a series of sessions organised by pharmaceutical and biotech companies. They covered topics relevant to a number of conditions such as spinal muscular atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Pompe disease and limb girdle muscular dystrophy.
The second day was dedicated to teaching and case studies for clinicians. Experience and knowledge was shared with clinicians all around the world because many more people registered to attend this event virtually than would have been able to attend in person.
The core research part of the conference started on Wednesday with a very warm welcome from the new President of WMS, Prof Volker Straub from Newcastle University. He spoke of the challenges and opportunities brought by switching to a virtual congress - the biggest opportunity being that it was experienced by participants from across the globe, many new to WMS.
Dr Maxwell Damian from Cambridge presented the plenary lecture. He spoke of the impact of Covid-19 on the neuromuscular community and how telemedicine (remote monitoring and video consultations) has benefitted neuromuscular patients over the past few months and that it could continue to be useful in the future.
This lecture was followed by two excellent panel discussions. The first was about the requirements for preclinical research (e.g. cell and animal models) in developing and investigating new treatments for neuromuscular conditions. The next panel discussed the opportunities and challenges in developing and delivering gene therapies.
The remainder of the congress consisted of presentations from early-career researchers who spoke of their work in identifying new genes and understanding what particular genes do to cause muscle-wasting conditions.
There were also nearly 350 scientific posters. In a typical congress, scientific posters are quite literally large sheets of paper attached to the wall that outline experiments and results. Often there are swarms of people crowding in front of posters trying to read. This year, of course, the posters were also virtual, giving everyone the opportunity to read all they wanted because nobody was blocking their view!
Although it was a shame that I couldn’t meet researchers face-to-face and make as many new connections, it was a fascinating few days. I learnt new things and will continue to return to the ‘virtual venue’ over the next few months to learn more. On the plus side, I could still attend MDUK’s virtual meetings, such as the Muscles Matter 2020 seminar on limb girdle muscular dystrophy, and my carbon footprint has remained very low this year.
Image taken from the World Muscle Society 25th International Annual Congress virtual event.