A Chance to Kiss the Blarney Stone
BIOTRACER's Second General Meeting

Dublin, Ireland
2-4 July 2008

BIOTRACER held its 2nd General Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, 2-4 July 2008. There was a pre-meeting programme which included a workshop on data generation and a Steering Committee meeting.

On 1 July, Panos Skandamis hosted a workshop entitled ‘Predictive modelling methodologies and guidelines to data generators'. Read more about the workshop. See photos from the workshop.

On 2 July, the General Meeting started in earnest with a welcome message by the host, Kieran Jordan of TEAGASC. This was followed by a presentation from other ‘traceability' EU-funded projects ProSafeBeef and Traceback. Dr. Geraldine Duffy presented ProDafeBeef and Dr. Raffaello Prugger presented Traceback. The BIOTRACER Scientific Manager, Dr. Martin Wagner, facilitated an open discussion between the two representatives of the projects and BIOTRACER participants. BIOTRACER's EC Scientific Officer, Hallgeir Herikstad was present to share his support for synergy between the projects.

In the afternoon of 2 July, the Research Areas met to discuss developments since the last General Meeting.

In the morning of 3 July, Work Package meetings were held. These meetings were held to discuss the work to take place during Months 19-30 of the project, as well as to discuss issues and challenges to the work.

In the afternoon, a poster session was held. BIOTRACER participants presented posters on their latest research. See poster session photos. In addition, Continuing Education Seminars were offered to the meeting participants. These workshops included gender issues, presentation skills, time management, and email/communication in a multilingual project. In the evening, the participants enjoyed a Welcome Dinner in downtown Dublin.

On the morning of 4 July, informal task meetings were held while the Scientific Committee held a meeting. The Scientific Committee discussed EC review report, heard updates on progress from each of the Work Packages, and discussed the development of work for the third 18-month period (months 24-42). Before lunch, all participants gathered in plenum to hear Rickard Knutsson (SVA) describe his presentation of BIOTRACER to the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research meeting in the US in February.

The General Meeting was closed after the International Advisory Board presented their ‘Reflections' as well as awarding the top three posters with prizes.

More information and reports from Work Package and Research Area meetings are available via the Members Only link.

See more photos from the meeting.