CanHepC Annual Meeting 2019 in Montréal

The 4th CanHepC Annual Meeting took place in Montreal on May 23, 2019 gathering over 90 of our member investigators, knowledge users, collaborators, and trainees.

As usual, the day gave way to fruitful discussions and exchanges while giving an opportunity for members to engage with each other and develop collaborations.

The main objective of the meeting was to discuss progress within each of the ongoing CanHepC research cores, and most importantly to establish priorities in terms of future research direction in view of a potential renewal application. Several research priorities were identified by the assembly which will be aligned with the ones identified in the Blueprint. Overall we received very positive feedback on our accomplishements so far from our International Advisory Board who achnowledge the increadible amount of work done over the past years as well as our efforts in leading the development of the Bluepirnt.

This year, the Annual Meeting featured a presentation from Geneviève Boily-Larouche (Institute of Infection and Immunity, CIHR) on the CIHR HIV/AIDS and STBBI Strategic Planning for 2020-2025. Also, one of the 8th Canadian Symposium on HCV’s guest invited speakers, Dr Ralf Bartenschlager from the University of Heidelberg, shared his personal selection of open questions in basic HCV research.

Each core (Basic Science, Clinical Research, Epidemiology, Policy and Knowledge translation) also met separately during an hour breakout sessions to discuss progress and reflect on next steps. Several other subjects were discussed by the assembly including Network administrative and financial matters.

The meeting closed with a preview presentation of the CanHepC Blueprint to inform hepatitis C elimination efforts in Canada ahead of the document’s official launch the next day at the 8th Canadian Symposium on Hepatitis C Virus (CSHCV) and the inaugural of the Canadian Liver Meeting on May 24, 2019.

Thank you to everyone present for making this day a great success!