Annual Meeting & 12th CSHCV
CanHepC held its member’s Annual Meeting and 12th Canadian Symposium on Hepatitis C Virus (CSHCV) in Halifax on March 2-3, 2023.
The network’s 8th Annual Meeting took place on March 2nd 2023 at the Halifax Convention Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The meeting convened 87 of our member investigator, knowledge users, student trainees collaborators, and guests. Two members of our International Advisory Board (Drs Andrea Cox & Anne Spaulding) were also in attendance.
The aim of the Annual Meeting is to discuss CanHepC’s direction and priorities for the next year. The program of the day was split between CanHepC’s program structure (research areas, themes and platforms including the Training, Education and Mentorship program) including progress updates presentations and discussions on next steps. Financial and administrative matters are also reviewed in details.
The 12th CSHCV was held on March 3rd, as part of the joint Canadian Digestive Diseases Week (CDDW) & Canadian Liver Meeting (CLM). The CSHCV was chaired by Mia Biondi and Christopher Richardson and featured presentations and plenaries on emerging hepatitis C research, programs and practices. Presentations from CanHepC student trainees, researchers, health practitioners, community members as well as international experts, were organised around four main pillars: biomedical research, population health research, clinical research and health services research. The focus of the CSHCV this year was on new models, approaches, and technical solutions that are milestones on the path towards hepatitis C elimination. In the community session, panelists shared their insights about engaging with people with lived/living experience in research and the importance of grounding the research process around the people we are trying to serve.
Another highlight of the day was the Public Health Agency of Canada’s presentation of the recently released 2019 national hepatitis C estimates (incidence, prevalence, undiagnosed proportion and treatment) recently released. The day concluded with a heartfelt leaving presentation for Naglaa Shoukry who has been leading the CanHepC network as its Director since 2015. Naglaa Shoukry will continue her participation in the network as a member investigator but will be stepping down from her Director and Nominated Principal Investigator role coming back full time to her own research projects as of April 1st, 2023. She will be replaced by Jordan Feld and Naveed Zafar Janjua who will take on leadership of CanHepC as co-Directors.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 12th CSHCV trainee poster & oral presentations awards:
- Best oral presentation: Elsa Guadalupe Gomez Escobar, Université de Montréal
- Best MSc student poster: Manolya Sag, McGill University
- Best PhD student poster: Michael Palmer. University of Saskatchewan
- Best Postdoctoral Fellow poster: Guillaume Fontaine, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
- Frank Bialystok Award: Jeong Dahn, University of British Columbia
