Dear members of the ECMM/ISHAM Working Group on Fungal respiratory infections in Cystic Fibrosis,
Dear friends,
As you all agreed, the ECMM/ISHAM Working Groups on Scedosporium and Lomentospora infections and on Fungal respiratory infections in Cystic Fibrosis have been merged into a single working group, and it was decided to keep the name of Fungal respiratory infections in Cystic Fibrosis (FRI-CF).
So it is now our pleasure to announce the sixth meeting of our working group, which will be held on June 6th and 7th, at Polytech Angers (16 Boulevard Daviers) as for previous meetings. For those who did not attend the first meetings, Angers is located in Western France at about 150 km from the Atlantic Ocean. There is a high speed train Angers-Paris every hour, and it takes about 1 h 30 from Montparnasse railway station. Alternatively, Angers can also be reached easily by high speed train directly from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The meeting will start on Thursday afternoon (14 h), and continue on Friday, ending with a plenary discussion to plan future activities. As in previous meetings, we plan to show you some of the famous places of the city on Thursday and Friday evenings.
For this meeting, which will be the last one before I retire, we would like to have as many speakers as possible. All topics will be covered, from the epidemiology of these infections and identification of potential risk factors, to taxonomy and ecology of the causative agents, improvement of the biological diagnosis including genetic approaches, identification of potential reservoirs of these fungi in direct environment of the patients, evaluation of new therapeutic approaches and elucidation of the pathogenic mechanisms. Please note that new members of our working group will be of course welcome, so do not hesitate to spread the information through your national societies for microbiology or medical mycology. Special attention will be given to presentations by PhD students. As the objectives in our working groups are to promote collaborative research between teams, please volunteer for an oral communication of your latest results as soon as possible by sending a mail to (with the registration form attached to this message). An overview of the topics of interest of the different teams is mandatory to plan collaborative studies. Of course, presentation of projects with search for partners is also encouraged.
The deadline for submitting abstracts is May 2nd, 2024, but please confirm as soon as possible your participation and indicate the title of your presentation(s) as soon as possible in order to prepare the preliminary program, which we would like to mail out in April.
We hope to acquire enough sponsoring to be able to organize the workshop free of charge, as we did for our first meetings. This includes all facilities, dinners, and tours on Thursday and Friday evenings. Please note that the workshop does not include your travel to Angers and hotel accommodation. You will find below a list of hotels near the railway station, in the center of the city or near the meeting venue (please note that there will be another congress in Angers on June 5-7; so do not wait for hotel accommodation).
Hope to see you all in Angers next June,
Friendly yours,
Jean-Philippe Bouchara,
On behalf the convenors of the FRI-CF working group
