Scientific Programme

Time Slot MAIN HALL PARALLEL HALL
10:00 – 12:00 ESCV PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP: Molecular Diagnostics: Harmonising Measurement for Patient Benefit * For further details regarding the workshop programme and registration, please visit the Pre-Conference Workshop page on the Conference website.  
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break
13:00 – 14:30 Workshop Continue
14:30 – 14:50 Coffee Break  
14:50 – 17:00 Workshop Continue  
Time SlotMAIN HALLPARALLEL HALL
13:30 – 14:30

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 1: Enteric viruses & Neurovirology

Keynote Lecture: Enteroviruses – so much more than polio in the 21st century,
Thea Fischer, Denmark

Offered talk 1: One year of Europe-wide surveillance pilot for Enteroviral CNS infections, Caroline Klint Johannesen, Denmark
Offered talk 2: Organotypic Intestinal Cultures as Promising Model for Personalized Antiviral Treatment in Immunocompromised Patients, Katja Wolthers, Netherlands
Offered talk 3: Association between natural killer cell genetics and the development of Long COVID associated- and prepandemic small fiber neuropathy, Marianne Graninger, Austria

 
14:30 – 15:30

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 2: Pandemic preparedness and health services research

Keynote Lecture: Pandemic preparedness and health services research,
Richard Pebody,
UK

Offered talk 4: Unlocking the full potential of wastewater-based epidemiology for pandemic preparedness: realistic quality assurance measures for the reliable detection of circulating and emerging viruses in wastewater, Marek Widera, Germany
Offered talk 5: AI-Optimized vaccination strategies to mitigate smallpox outbreaks in urban settings: A case study of Frankfurt, Tristan Learoyd, UK
Offered talk 6: Wastewater Surveillance Aids Real-time Tracking of Community Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza, Debasis Biswas, India

 
15:30 – 16:00COFFEE BREAK
16:00 – 17:30

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 3: Respiratory viruses

Keynote Lecture: Emerging viruses – when public health, diagnostics and translational research meets, Isabella Eckerle, Switzerland

Offered talk 7: Characterization of RSV full-length viral genomes after Nirsevimab breakthrough infections in a large national observational real-world study conducted in France, Marie Anne Rameix Welti, France
Offered talk 8: Age- and cell-type-specific metabolic programming shapes respiratory and systemic immune responses against the Influenza A virus, Maike Willers, Germany
Offered talk 9: Characterization of antigenic relations of SARS-CoV-2 variants and population immunity using antigenic cartography, Janine Kimpel, Austria
Offered talk 10: The role of RSV viral load and co-infection on disease severity in a very large cohort of paediatric patients, Rossana Scutari, Italy
Offered talk 11: Coronaviruses impair resolution phase in monocytes via aberrant interferon signalling, Joshua D Kandler, Germany

 
17:30 – 18:00Opening Ceremony 
18:00 – 19:00WELCOME RECEPTION
Time SlotMAIN HALLPARALLEL HALL
08:30 – 10:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 4: 
Viromics and virus discovery
Keynote Lecture: Are there any more human cancer viruses left to be found? Patrick Moore, US

Offered talk 12: Multicenter benchmarking of short and long read wet lab protocols for clinical viral metagenomics, Xavier Lopez-Labrador, Spain
Offered talk 13: Tracing the origin, spread and molecular evolution of Dengue type 1 cases occurred in Northern Italy in 2023, Greta Romano, Italy
Offered talk 14: Metagenomic and transcriptomic investigation of paediatric acute liver failure cases, Jutte J.c. De Vries, Netherlands
Offered talk 15: Evaluating metagenomics and targeted approaches for diagnosis and surveillance of viruses, Oscar Enrique Torres Montaguth, UK
Offered talk 16: Detection of clinically relevant viral pathogens using antibody capture and metagenomic sequencing, Leonard Schuele, Netherlands

 
10:00 – 10:30COFFEE BREAK
10:30 – 12:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 5: 
Viruses, tumors and immunocompromised hosts
Gardner Lecture: Viruses, Cancer and Immunocompromised Hosts, Hans Hirsch, Switzerland

Offered talk 17: HCMV-specific T-cell response as a tool for predicting late HCMV reactivation in hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients after letermovir prophylaxis, Irene Cassaniti, Italy
Offered talk 18: Characterization of the Blood Virome in Liver Transplant Patients, Alessandra Franze, Spain
Offered talk 19: Intraindividual evolution of noroviral sequences during protracted infections, Dieter Hoffmann, Germany
Offered talk 20: Viral infections in Stem Cell Transplant recipients with posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder: Torque Teno Virus as a marker of immune function, Martyna Sylwia Pociupany, Belgium
Offered talk 21: Investigating nosocomial BK Polyomavirus infections in paediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients: challenges and prospects, Aurélien Aubry, France

 
12:00 – 13:30LUNCH BREAK

12:30 – 13:30

INDUSTRY SYMPOSIUM 1

12:30 – 13:30

ESCV Council Meeting
13:30 – 15:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 6:
Advancements in diagnostics & clinical cases
Keynote Lecture: Innovative diagnostic approaches towards persistent viruses and associated diseases, Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl, Austria

Offered talk 22: Transient biopsy-proven progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy-immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome in an elderly woman without known immunodeficiency, Christine Hanssen Rinaldo, Norway
Offered talk 23: National-scale environmental and clinical surveillance of Poliovirus strains using novel quantitative PCR assays, Oran Erster, Israel
Offered talk 24: Genomic studies of adeno-associated virus hepatitis, Sarah Buddle, UK
Offered talk 25: Impact of inherited human herpesvirus 6 in transplantation, Leo Hannolainen, Finland
Offered talk 26: A Novel Next Generation Sequencing Approach for Detecting Antiviral Resistance Mutations in Cytomegalovirus, Maria Arnedo Muñoz, Spain

 
15:00 – 15:30COFFEE BREAK
15:30 – 17:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 7:
Diagnostic Stewardship / Diagnostic test accuracy
Keynote Lecture: Diagnostic Stewardship in Clinical Virology as Strategy! Hubert G.M. Niesters, Netherlands

Offered talk 27: Performance of a novel dual marker RT-qPCR- based whole-blood assay for the detection of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells, Franziska M. Kanis, Germany
Offered talk 28: Are we using syndromic meningitis testing rationally? Five-year experience of a university hospital laboratory, Zeynep Ceren Karahan, Turkey
Offered talk 29: Prospective comparison of cytomegalovirus quantification in whole blood and plasma samples among hematopoietic stem cell transplant and kidney transplant recipients, Linda Feghoul, France
Offered talk 30: Dengue virus shedding kinetics in body fluids of infected patients, Rome, Italy, 2018-2023, Giulia Matusali, Italy
Offered talk 31: Diagnosing acute Epstein-Barr Virus infections: do all roads lead to Rome? Jos Van Acker, Belgium

 
17:00 – 18:00ENNGS Meeting 
17:00 – 19:00POSTER SESSION 1
Time SlotMAIN HALLPARALLEL HALL
08:30 – 10:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 8:
Development of new antiviral strategies
Keynote Lecture: Development of antiviral inhibitors of low molecular weight targeting the frameshift element of SARS-CoV-2, Harald Schwalbe, Germany

Offered talk 32: Safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of PRV-101, a multivalent vaccine targeting coxsackie B viruses associated with type 1 diabetes: a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled Phase 1 trial, Heikki Hyoty, Finland
Offered talk 33: Development and characterisation of a novel SARS-CoV-2 macrodomain (Mac1) targeting inhibitor, Susanne Pfefferle, Germany
Offered talk 34: Prevention of BK virus DNAemia by IVIG administration in at-risk kidney transplant recipients, Morgane Solis, France
Offered talk 35: Brincidofovir sensitivity testing of vaccinia virus containing potential resistance associated mutations, Kevin Yeo, US
Offered talk 36: Emerging host-targets for anti-mpox therapy, Denisa Bojkova, Germany

 
10:00 – 10:30COFFEE BREAK
10:30 – 12:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 9:
Immune response and vaccines

Keynote Lecture: Human Papillomavirus immunisation and the path to cervical cancer elimination? Kate Cuschieri, UK

Offered talk 37: T-cell immunity to a conserved coronavirus epitope correlates with improved outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection, David M. Florian, Austria
Offered talk 38: IL-12 is a key responsive element to corticosteroid treatment in COVID-19, Benedikt Strunz, Sweden
Offered talk 39: Specific long-term changes in anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG modifications and antibody functions in mRNA, adenovector, and protein subunit vaccines, Sebastian Reinig, Taiwan
Offered talk 40: Individual T-cell Cytokine patterns and B-cell reactions after HPV vaccination elucidated by multi-colour EliSpot, Rosemarie Preyer, Germany
Offered talk 41: A Combined Cross-Sectional Analysis and Case-Control Study Evaluating Tick-Borne Encephalitis Vaccination Coverage, Disease and Vaccine Effectiveness in Children 0-17 in Switzerland, 2005-2022, Kyra Zens, Switzerland

 
12:00 – 13:30LUNCH BREAK
12:15-13:15
ENPEN Meeting
 
POSTER SESSION 2
13:30 – 15:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 10:
Viral infections in pregnancy

Keynote Lecture: Cytomegalovirus infection screening in pregnancy
how far are we?

Marianne Leurez
-Ville, France

Offered talk 42: Genomic diversity of cytomegalovirus in congenital infections in France, Jacques Fourgeaud, France
Offered talk 43: Universal neonatal screening for congenital Cytomegalovirus, nine years after implementation and still going strong, Jos Van Acker, Belgium
Offered talk 44: Exploring the urinary metabolomic fingerprint of human cytomegalovirus: a 1H-NMR study on congenitally infected newborns, Valentina Delloste, Italy
Offered talk 45: Pichinde virus infection of pregnant guinea pigs as a comparative model of human Lassa virus infection during pregnancy, Hinh Ly, US
Offered talk 46: Valacyclovir in Pregnancy To Prevent and Treat Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection: Results from a Large Tertiary Care Hospital in Rome, Rosaria Santangelo, Italy

 
15:00 – 15:30COFFEE BREAK
15:30 – 17:00

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 11:

Emerging and re-emerging viral infections & One health

Keynote Lecture: A virologist’s lookback on COVID-19, Christian Drosten, Germany

Offered talk 47: High West Nile virus infection rates in mosquitoes from Berlin, 2023, Corinna Patzina Mehling, Germany
Offered talk 48: A 10 year long-lived cellular and humoral MERS-CoV immunity cross-recognizing the Wild-type and Variants of SARS-CoV-2: a potential one-way MERS-CoV cross-protection towards a pan-coronavirus vaccine, Bandar Alosaimi, Saudi Arabia
Offered talk 49: Seroprevalence and vaccination coverage of tick-borne encephalitis in Sweden, Bo Albinsson, Sweden
Offered talk 50: Identifying gaps in population immunity in light of large measles outbreaks in Austria in 2023 and 2024, David Niklas Springer, Austria
Offered talk 51: Comparison of neutralizing and binding antibodies levels against different orthopoxviruses in mpox patients and healthy vaccinated individuals, Concetta Castilletti, Italy

 
17:00 – 17:30ESCV GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
19:30 – 23:00CONFERENCE NETWORKING DINNER
Time SlotMAIN HALLPARALLEL HALL
09:00 – 10:30

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 12:
Hepatitis, HIV and other blood borne viruses

Keynote Lecture: Hepatitis D Virus infection; present status,
Mario Rizzetto, Italy

Offered talk 52: HDV infection in the UK, Will Irving, UK
Offered talk 53: HIV-2 infections in Southern France and genotypic assessment though genome next generation sequencing, Philippe Colson, France
Offered talk 54: Heterogeneity in the diagnostic performances of HDV RNA quantification assays used in clinical practice in Italy: data from the first national quality control multicenter study, Romina Salpini, Italy
Offered talk 55: Large Hepatitis E virus Genotype 3 outbreak in New Caledonia Island, Florence Abravanel, France
Offered talk 56: Evaluation of a Sanger sequencing-based kit for genotyping drug resistance mutations in various HIV-1 subtypes using clinical and analytical samples, Ontlametse T Bareng, Austria

 
10:30 – 11:00COFFEE BREAK
11:00 – 12:30

SCIENTIFIC SESSION 13:
Prizes session

Biomérieux Award Lecture: The good and the bad; update on polyoma- and anelloviruses, Mariet Feltkamp, Netherlands

European Diagnostic Virology Award Lecture: Metagenomics for the diagnosis of infection, Juliane Brown, UK

Heine -Medin Award Lecture: From Endemic to Pandemic: The promise and realization of real-time phylogenetics, Emma Hodcroft, Switzerland

 
12:30 – 13:00CLOSING REMARKS & HANDOVER TO ESCV 2025