The summit on pandemics in Trieste, between current challenges and new frontiers

TRIESTE We defeated Covid-19, but it was a long, tiring and expensive fight, also in terms of human lives. The challenge now is to make ourselves ready for the pandemics to come, studying emerging and re-emerging pathogens and their potential epidemic risk, developing diagnostic and surveillance systems, ad hoc drugs and preventive approaches in a context of international cooperation. That’s the goal of the conference “Pandemic preparedness: results, current challenges and new frontiers”organized by Area Science Parkwith the collaboration ofIcgebwithin the project Prp@Cericfinanced with Pnrr funds.

Global experts

The conference will take place in Trieste, at the Hotel Savoia, from 11 to 13 November, some of the leading experts globally in the various fundamental disciplines for the development of multidisciplinary approaches to the challenge of emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases.

To take the lion’s share they will be the virologists: from the University of Wisconsin-Madison will arrive Yoshihiro Kawaoka, world-renowned expert on the influenza virus, who in Japan directs The Utopia Center, an organization for the prevention of pandemics; will return to Trieste Rino Rappuoli, scientific director of the National Anti-Pandemic Center to whom the Julian University recently awarded an honorary degree; will come from the UK Tom Peacockwhich studies pandemic risk by focusing on infectious diseases and their passage from animals to humans.

Studies are also focused on zoonoses Marion Koopmans (Netherlands) and of Tatjana Avšič-Županc (Slovenia), flavivirus expert, among the first to demonstrate the link between the zika virus and fetal problems found in women who contracted it during pregnancy.

The danger of zoonoses

«For the WHO, zoonoses, viruses such as Sars Cov-2, dengue, Zika, are, together with antimicrobial resistance (in particular to superbugs), the diseases with the greatest epidemic risk – he explains Giuditta Di Lorenzo, researcher at Area Science Park and among the scientific organizers of the conference -. And in the future the situation will not improve: the increase in the population and its ageing, the increase in travel and the globalization of trade, ever-increasing urbanization and the interconnections between man, the environment and domestic and wild animals favor development of zoonoses”.

The names of drug discovery and clinic

Experts on the drug discovery and clinical front will also participate in the conference: Johan Neytsof the University of Leuven, is one of the leading specialists in antiviral drugs, while Emma Thomsonaffiliated with the Center for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow, is an expert in clinical trials (she also followed those for vaccines against Covid), as well as Fabrizio Maggi, head of the Spallanzani virology laboratory.

The other specialists

There will also be experts in structural biology, such as Daniel Hurdiss, from Utrecht University, which studies how viruses interact with components of our cells to identify possible targets for antivirals; specialists from the world of infrastructure, such as Lucia Banci of the University of Florence; experts in sequencing techniques, such as Tullio De Oliveira, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), the person who detected the Omicron variant for the first time. Finally, there will be a look at the world of AI, with the computational biologist Martin Weigtof the Sorbonne, who will discuss how to use sequencing data from pathogen genomes to try to predict their mutations.

The Prp@Ceric project

«The conference will be the main event of the Prp@Ceric project, financed with 41 million euros intended for the creation and strengthening of research infrastructures and which also includes Elettra Sincrotrone, Icgeb, Cnr-Ic and Cnr-Iom among its partners» ,explains Federica Mantovani, Infrastructure manager of Prp@Ceric -. With this project we aim to create a European network of infrastructures and human resources to better face the challenge posed by future pandemics, creating a network of cutting-edge skills and tools.

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