Dear all,
I thought many people here would be keen to attend the 2nd annual HBV patient forum that will be taking place during the International Meeting for the Molecular Biology of Hepatitis B and D viruses. It is free to register and is being held as a hybrid meeting (both online and in person) in Toronto this year. Details as follows:
When - 30 September 2021, 7-9am Eastern time
Where - Toronto, Canada; also online
More information, detailed program, and link to registration here: HBV Patient Forum » International HBV Meeting
Cheers,
Thomas
It should be free if you only register for the Patient forum. You only pay if you join the main meeting (which is all about hardcore molecular biology) or the ICE-HBV symposium (which is more focused on cure in clinical terms).
Cheers,
Thomas
Hi all,
I’m involved in organizing the main HBV meeting, the ICE-HBV symposium, and the HBV public forum that Thomas metions.
Thomas is absolutely right: The main HBV meeting is hardcore basic/translational science and has a registration fee (US$200 for online attendance or $500 for in-person). The ICE-HBV symposium will be on the mechanisms behind drugs being considered for curative therapies. It is a technical scientific meeting with a registration fee of US$50 for either in-person or virtual attendance. The Public Forum will feature a mix of overview scientific presentations at the layperson’s level, community service organization presentations, and patient presentations. It is free to all and will be both in-person for those who can get to Toronto Canada and virtual for those who cannot.
All 3 events will be quite productive for those interested in the various topics. I’m really looking forward to them!
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Thanks for sharing @ThomasTu looks like a great event. I see you are speaking at it too.
@john.tavis, glad to hear you are part of the organizing committee!
Is the ICE-HBV symposium geared towards patients and the lay community or is it more technical like what John is saying?
It would be important for more patients to be more integrated in these kind of meetings. I think we should also think about how we can increase the scientific literacy of patients, so they can keep up with the latest scientific developments for HBV and have a say in the development. HIV and HCV each have had patients who were really savvy on therapeutic development and worked closely with researchers. We need to aspire to that too and would be great for meetings to be planned with that in mind.
So while I think it’s great for there to be this free public forum, it would also be great if there was a patient/community rate for the main meeting. Not everyone will be interested, but there are many science leaning HBV patients and having a special rate is important to make them feel welcome (and make it affordable)
Anyway, just my two cents!
Su
Hi Sue,
The ICE-HBV forum at the upcoming International HBV meeting will be a scientific working meeting targeting active researchers in academia and industry. It will explore issue related to the mechanisms of combination therapies that will be entering trials in the near future. It will be a detailed scientific exploration of the rationales for combining drugs of various classes, with the goal of gaining some clarity about which types of drugs have the best chance to work together to give a cure. There is no meaningful understanding of this yet, so the discussion needs to be deep in the weeds of arcane scientific details if we are to make substantial progress on this critical question.
However, I am in enthusiastic agreement that the patient community’s voice needs to be heard loud and clear as cure therapies are developed. The ICE-HBV Governing Board includes a patient/advocacy representative, the HBF’s own Joan Block, and she is very active in our governance. Also, I worked with the American Cancer Society as one of their senior scientific advisors for a long time, and all of the ACS’ grant and policy review committees have robust patient representation, so I have first-hand experience with the very valuable insights the patients can provide.
In sum: The ICE-HBV Forum needs to be a detailed scientific evaluation of a critical topic to have a chance of making progress, but HBV patients and advocacy representatives are all very much welcome to join. I’ll see if I can get a reduced registration rate for patient/community representatives. Stay tuned…I’ll post again once a decision is reached.
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Thanks for all this John. Great to hear that Joan is part of the governing board and that you worked closely with ACS. I think cancer and HIV organizations have a great history of involving patients and community in meaningful ways.
I think what Capucine discussed about increasing scientific literacy of patients is really important too so that they are able to engage in the heavily scientific (and delightfully arcane!) discussions. It’s an exciting time and will be important to have the partnership between the patient community and the scientists!
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