by Nina Vashchenko, EAN Residents & Research Fellows Section Chair
The first EAN Congress Spin-Off, took place in Salzburg, Austria, on 17 March 2023, one day before the EAN Science School, bringing together a group of enthusiastic participants for a truly inspiring event.
The overarching theme of the event was ‘The role of Complement inhibition in Neurological Rare Disease: from Myasthenia Gravis to other muscle diseases’ and participation was free of charge for all participants.
The idea of the EAN Congress Spin-Off is to continue the scientific dialogue among healthcare professionals outside the annual congress and to deepen the topic. It uses a blended session format that gathers smaller and homogenous groups of participants. This made for a very engaging experience, with lots of opportunities for interaction and some very lively high-quality discussions.
The Spin-Off included four Masterclass sessions that took place in parallel groups, which each included clinical practitioners, neurologists, and industrial scientists, allowed very interesting dialogue from different perspectives and points of view.
The speakers at the event—Amelia Evoli and Antonio Toscano from Italy, Marianne de Visser from the Netherlands, and Nils Erik Gilhus from Norway—all presented outstanding lectures, previously delivered at the EAN Annual Congress in Vienna, in June 2022.
Overall, the first EAN Congress Spin-Off was a very successful event that allowed healthcare professionals to continue their scientific dialogue and deepen their knowledge of the role of complement inhibition in Myasthenia Gravis and other muscle diseases.
The feedback from this first ever Spin-Off was extremely positive and the EAN Head Office are already looking into confirming further events. I look forward to the announcement of more Congress Spin-Offs soon!
