Welcome

The 3CdF organising committee is happy to welcome you to the 1st Cross-Channel C. difficile Forum

Here you will find more information about the objectives of the event, the speakers and the schedule.

You can also register and submit an abstract directly through this website.

Objectives

Stimulate UK-French collaborations on C. difficile
Provide a discussion forum for ECRs researching C. difficile
Networking opportunities for ECRs with established PIs

Invited Speakers

3CdF is focused on ECRs who will present their work. We also have 3 invited speakers - a world leader C. difficile researcher, and representatives from the research community in France and the UK.

Keynote: Prof Dr Maja Rupnik

Maja Rupnik is a Head of Department for microbiological research at NLZOH (National laboratory for health, environment and food) in Maribor, Slovenia. At the Faculty of Medicine, University of Maribor, she teaches medicine and dental students. Clostridium difficile is one of her main research interests since her PhD in 1998. Her research group works on environmental aspect of C. difficile, in development of methods for C. difficile isolation from various reservoirs and in genomic aspects of interspecies variation in C. difficile. Other research topics cover gut microbiota and molecular epidemiology of various antibiotic resistant pathogens from the One Health perspective. She leads the Organising Committee of International C. difficile Symposium (ICDS) organised every two or three years in Slovenia. Since 2023, she is Editor-in-Chief of Anaerobe journal.

France - Prof. Claire Janoir

The research developed in Prof Janoir's laboratory aims at understanding the interactions between the host and C. difficile which lead to the colonisation of the host. To address this question, the lab combines several approaches: characterisation of surface-associated proteins involved in colonisation and their regulation by environmental conditions and global analysis of bacterial adaptation to the host by genome-wide in vivo transcriptomics. More recently, she has developed studies on the link between host colonisation and the formation of biofilm by C. difficile.

UK - A/Prof Meera Unnikrishnan

After a PhD at Imperial College London studying the biological functions ofStreptococcus pyogenes superantigens and postdoctoral experience at Harvard University investigating the mechanisms of host modulation by Trypanosoma cruzi and type VII secretion systems in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, she joined Novartis Vaccines in Italy, as a Senior Scientist to investigate vaccine candidates from Staphylococcus aureus and C. difficile. Current work as Associate Professor at Warwick University focuses on understanding bacterial mechanisms underlying C. difficile colonisation and persistence. One of our current interests include the development of new cell-based systems to enable pathogen-host-microbiota interactions.

Funding & Sponsorship:

FEMS - Federation of European Microbiology Societies

https://fems-microbiology.org/opportunities/cross-channel-c-difficile-forum-3cdf/

Don Whitley Scientific

https://www.dwscientific.com/

Labo & Co

https://www.laboandco.com/

9:00 AM

Session 2