ESID Juniors Working Party Report, November 2008

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This report describes achievements of the ESID Juniors in the last two years and it also outlines our future activities on which we want to focus during the next two years.

Dear all,

First of all, I want to thank all of you for your trust and support, for giving me the opportunity to chair the ESID juniors Working Party for the next two years. It is a great honor and such an amazing and unique chance ! I also want to congratulate Eleonora Gambinieri for her new position as ESID treasurer and for her great job she has done for ESID junior WP, hoping that she will not forget us and will support our activities from now on too.

Looking back, I can say that we succeed to realize many of our wishes. We have been able to play an active role not only in our party, but also in many ESID activities. We have an improved network, we have a dedicated ESID Juniors section on the ESID website, with new topics and links. Please, have a look on it and use it. And if you have recent photos from the Educational day please send them to Benjamin Gathman at [email protected].
We developed and participated actively in different exchange programs. We had for the first time a junior representative as part of the faculty of ESID Summer School in 2007 and for the first time we had a dedicated ESID Junior Corner within the 2008 ESID meeting. This was an amazing chance to get to know us better, to learn and interact.
During these years we also have been involved in the editorial board of ESID Newsletter. For example, Ales Janda was promoting clinical discussions among young and experienced physicians, during his 'Interesting cases' corner, Lucia Bianchi presented different laboratory protocols and methods in the field of PIDs. Finally, I was excited to look for the most interesting papers in the field and present them to you. Now, we are looking for more volunteers to join the Editorial Board of the ESID newsletter. It is such a unique way to learn new things and interact. Don't loose it!

It was great to see so many of you in ESID meeting, being so active in the Educational Day, in the poster session and then in the evening at gala dinner. After the ESID meeting we have been busy exchanging thoughts and suggestions through emails. Briefly, here is a short summary of the things we have discussed and want to focus for the next two years.

Develop exchange and training programs

  1. Trying to organize more 'summer/winter schools' each year, one in winter and one in summer one focused more on clinical part an one on laboratory part.
  2. In the 'summer school' should be focused more on how to care for patients, mechanism of disease, and overview of different techniques.
  3. Have more experimental/interactive session in clinical part
  4. Have more cooperation/collaboration between ESIDjuniors and between ESIDjuniors and other ESID parties, between West and East, between the countries which are more developed and countries which are less developed in PIDs services. 

Be more active within ESID activities

  1. Improve the Educational Day. A web survey form has been created with the help of IMT Bioinformatics group from Tampere. Please provide your feedback The form will be online until the end of the year.
  2. Have better electronic communication (mailing list to work better, receive the mail and give the link to the webpage)
  3. Joining the juniors with seniors in research activities and also in writing the papers (for e.g review articles). The example of Nima Rezaei who succeed to use innovation and energy of juniors as well as science and experience of seniors to recently publish a book on PID, is worth mentioning.

Increase the motivation and participation in the working party

  1. Have motivations for those involved (incentives, such as 'electronic points' for those who submit cases, write in ESID newsletter, submit patient cases for ESID registry, submit data for IDdiagnostics, IDbases, act as validators for IDR, get involved in the development of PIDexpert), have discounts on books, reduced registration fee in ESID meetings. These electronic points gathered to be taken into consideration also when we select the winners for participation in summer/winter school, different travel awards.
  2. Have a proper award ceremony for 'the best poster', 'the best presentation', 'the best mentor', and other 'achievements in PIDs' in the end of the 'Educational Day' or 'ESID meeting'
  3. The funds should be split for summer/winter school, short lab visits, incentives
  4. Publish the clinical cases in ESID newsletter and the best selected cases to be published in peer review journals. The clinical cases should be discussed between the students, and with senior experts
  5. Case studies should be also in web format, notification should be automatically, to get people more involved
  6. Selecting best junior researchers in field of immunodeficiencies each year (quantity and quality of the published papers should be considered) and awarding some small prizes (e.g., at least free membership of ESID for two periods!) 

Increase the services

  1. Have a database with pictures of clinical cases and one for techniques.
  2. Have a database on activities of ESID juniors, where the electronic points can be gathered.
  3. IDdiagnostics, (a project previous funded by ESID and EU, need to be maintained), to be better used (for e.g. once the people submit the data for ESID registry to submit also for IDdiagnostic, the same as for IDbases), to be better integrated within ESID registry and to have better funding.
  4. IDR- factfile (the core of the system, to be better integrated within ESID disease registry (it has been done already in the Asian PID Registry and in ORPHANET, an European rare disease database), in this way we can have even stronger the link between genotype and phenotype and between clinics and bioinformatics tools, exactly, what Prof. Alain Fisher was encouraging us to do in his inaugural speech at ESID 2008. We have already the tools, we just have to used them fully! IDR to be better used and supported by ESID and other funding organizations. These valuable services for PIDs community need your attention!

So, be brave and step forward, give your input and help to shape the future of our party!

Let's keep the spirit of 'Education, Sociability, Interaction and Discussion = ESID juniors', alive!

Looking forward to hear from you!

Crina SAMARGHITEAN