Retirement symposium on public health microbiology, celebrating the career of Marc Struelens

​Marc Struelens retires from ECDC after 10 years of service but has a much longer track record of serving public health and contributing to advances in clinical and public health microbiology at national and EU level. Marc Struelens (MD, PhD, FSHEA, FESCMID) trained as a medical doctor at  Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium. He did a research fellowship on enteric disease epidemiology and pathophysiology at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh in 1981-84.  From 1985 to 2009 Marc led an academic career to become head of clinical microbiology laboratory at Erasme University Hospital and Professor of Medical Microbiology at the Faculty of Medicine, ULB. His research focused on the molecular epidemiology and control of antimicrobial resistance. He is a former President of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, of the Belgian Infection Control Society and founding chair of the ESCMID Study Group on Epidemiological Markers.

Programme:

15:00 – 15:10  Welcome

                        Andrea Ammon, Director, ECDC – 10 minutes

15:10 – 15:40  How ecology, vaccines and antibiotics are driving the evolution of bacterial pathogens

                        Sylvain Brisse, Institut Pasteur, FR – 20 minutes

                        Discussion – 10 minutes

15:40 – 16:10  Advancing clinical microbiology for AMR control and patient safety

                        Alexander Friedrich, University of Groningen, NL – 20 minutes

                        Discussion – 10 minutes

16:10 – 16:20 Break 

16:20 – 16:50 Translating medical sciences to pandemic preparedness and response 

                        Herman Goossens, University of Antwerpen, BE – 20 minutes

                        Discussion – 10 minutes

16:50 – 17:20  From traditional to evolutionary medicine and public health 

                        Marc Struelens, University of Brussels, BE – 20 minutes

                        Discussion – 10 minutes

17:20 – 17:30  Concluding remarks 

                        Andrea Ammon, Director, ECDC – 10 minutes

Moderators: Daniel Palm, Ines Steffens, ECDC