Conference on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in the Netherlands

by Khalid Iqbal

Attending ECCMID 2019, the annual congress of European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, was an extraordinary experience of my career. As one of the biggest conferences in the world, with more than 13.000 participants from 127 countries, ECCMID offered a wide range of sessions including: keynotes, symposia, poster sessions, educational workshops, meet-the-expert sessions and more. It brings together global experts from academia, clinical setup, research organizations, industry and regulatory agencies.

The conference provided cutting edge research topics and with 232 lectures sessions and more than 6000 posters and short talks. It was a great honor to get selected on such a prestigious forum for a short talk. I presented my PhD work related to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modelling to predict clinical breakpoints at target sites. I got very valuable feedback on my work from the audience. Beside sharing my work and getting feedback from fellow researchers, the conference widened my horizons of knowledge to the state of the art research going on around the world. 

Conferences are opportunities of networking. I got a chance to meet a number of renowned scientists from my field.  Meeting with early career fellow researchers was another exciting part of networking. I learned a lot from all these active engagements, comments, exchange of ideas and perspectives of research from same and other related fields in different parts of the world. Moreover, it helped in opening opportunities for future collaborative research.

The conference was a great value in enriching my knowledge, ideas and exposure related to my area of research. I am very thankful to MINGS office for the kind guidance, help, support and funding to have such a great experience in my career.