Microbiome: From Benchtop to Bedside, 5th edition

Programma

09:00 – 09:35 Registration and coffee

09:35 – 09:45 Opening

Session 1: Five years in: what actually changed?

Four fields that looked full of promise when we started this symposium. Four people who can say where each of them actually stands today.

09:45 – 10:10: Sarah Lebeer (Universiteit Antwerpen) on lactobacilli and the vaginal microbiome, and what citizen science at scale did to our assumptions.

10:10 – 10:35: Lisa Derosa (Gustave Roussy) on the microbiome and response to cancer immunotherapy.

10:35 – 11:00: Shari Mackens (UZ Brussel) on the microbiome in reproductive medicine.

11:00 – 11:25: Max Nieuwdorp (Amsterdam UMC) on faecal microbiota transplantation and metabolic disease, a decade after the first trials.

11:25 – 11:55: Panel discussion

11:55 – 12:15: Best abstract award

12:15 – 13:45: Lunch, poster session and artistic content

Session 2: How do you know the signal is real?

Three people who work on the stretch between a result and a decision.

13:45 – 14:10: Mette Hazenberg (Amsterdam UMC) on faecal microbiota transplantation in graft-versus-host disease, and what a phase 1 trial does and does not settle.

14:10 – 14:35: Crystel Hajjar (Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth) on short-chain fatty acids and the gut-immune axis after stem cell transplantation, and on antibiotic exposure as the confounder that refuses to go away.

14:35 – 15:00: Thies Gehrmann (Universiteit Antwerpen) on what happens when you stop picking one analysis and run every defensible version of it instead. Most findings depend on choices that never make it into the methods section, and this is a way to see which ones hold.

15:00 – 15:25: Panel discussion 

15:25 – 16:10: Coffee break and poster session

Session 3: Does it matter more at the start or at the end?

The microbiome at the two ends of a life, where the stakes are highest.

16:10 – 16:35: Debby Bogaert (University of Edinburgh) on the early-life respiratory microbiome: how the first months set up the airway ecosystem, and why the same colonising bacteria lead to infection in one infant and to nothing at all in another.

16:35 – 17:00: Francesco Asnicar (University of Trento) on what large-scale metagenomics shows about diet, the gut microbiome and metabolic health as people age, and how much of that translates into anything an older adult should actually do differently.

17:00 – 17:25: Third speaker to be announced.

17:25 – 18:00: Panel discussion

18:00 – 19:30: Network reception, poster session and registration of the evening guests

Evening program (in Dutch)

19:30: Inleidende voordracht

Een actuele blik op het microbioom en de vertaalslag van onderzoek naar de klinische praktijk.

20:00: Gesprekstafels tijdens walking dinner

In kleine groepen gaan we met onze experten dieper in op drie thema's:

1. Het microbioom en gastro-enterologie
2. Het microbioom in de huisartsenpraktijk
3. Het microbioom en de impact van voeding en levensstijl

21:00: Panelgesprek tijdens het dessert
Onze sprekers gaan met elkaar en met het publiek in gesprek over de inzichten van de avond.

21:45: Netwerkdrink

23:00: Einde

Prijzen

• Pre-doc: 75 euro incl. VAT
• Post-doc, Academica, Healthcare workers: 100 euro incl. VAT
• Industry Registration: 200 euro incl. VAT

• Evening program: 45 euro incl. VAT

Deadlines

Inschrijven: 20/10/2026

Abstract submission: 09/10/2026 via this link

Deze editie van Microbiome: From Benchtop to Bedside is een onderdeel van het FTI Gent-programma en een coproductie samen met Wintercircus.