Schools of Respiratory Viruses are held all over the world. They are educational events aimed at graduate students and early career scientists who are starting, or in the early stages of a career in influenza, public health, surveillance, research or product development. Schools provide a comprehensive preparatory background to maximise understanding of the topics covered as well as opportunity for networking with other early career respiratory scientists and speakers who are world experts in their fields of research.
The 6th ISIRV School of Respiratory Viruses was held at Qatar University from 19th to 23rd January 2025.
The 6th School attendees and some of the teaching faculty.
ISIRV partnered with the Biomedical Research Centre and WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Capacity Building on Emerging and Re-emerging Zoonotic Diseases at Qatar University, WHO EMRO and Gulf CDC to deliver the school. The School offered an intensive program of lectures to train the next generation of respiratory virus researchers, public health and animal/one health scientists. The school focused on improving understanding of influenza, coronaviruses (SARS and MERS), and RSV with a strong focus on human, animal-/one health and outbreak/pandemic preparedness.
The 6th edition of the School was the largest to date. Seventy-six international and 45 Qatar based students attended the 5-day school. Attendees from the EMRO region were prioritised with ISIRV supporting 44 participants from Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. One-year ISIRV membership will be given to the scholarship awardees supported by ISIRV. Other international students attended from Bahrain, Germany, India, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Norway, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Forty-five Qatar based students attended the school, with other local attendees joining for specific days. The school was oversubscribed, although most of these attendees needed a scholarship to attend, and a Webex link was shared with participants who could not join the school in person so as they could follow the school online.
The ISIRV school facilitated networking opportunities with ice breaker session, round tables during the breaks and lunch for students and teaching faculty to meet, and a gala dinner to encouraging informal networking and collaboration within the region. The program included a mixture of keynote lectures, two expert panel discussions (bridging the gap between academic and industry, and mass gatherings) and 3 student presentation sessions (two oral sessions and a poster session). Each morning started with a recap by a group of students of the previous day. Daily feedback by the students was collected on the school program and areas for improvement. We are very grateful to the speakers from Qatar, the EMRO region and around the world who shared insights into the latest research on respiratory viruses, with a focus on both fundamental science and its applications. Qatar showcased its work on surveillance systems used to track viral outbreaks, including genomic surveillance, and the role of real-time data in shaping public health responses and timely vaccine effectiveness data from the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the school received very positive feedback, and many students established new contacts within the region.
The Mini School of Influenza was held at the University of Queensland on 28th September 2024. The school had 103 attendees compromised of students and early careers scientists including all scholarship holders from BMGF, Flu Lab, and ISIRV. Registration had to close early due to the large demand. The school was a partnership between the University of Queensland, Flu Lab and the Translational Science Hub (TSH) in Brisbane. Flu Lab also proved funding for a social dinner after the school, for professional audiovisual services and recording of the school, which will be included in the new website. The school provided an overview of the main topics covered at Options XII and provided an opportunity for students to meet new colleagues and some of the key speakers prior to the conference. The school covered key areas of Respiratory viruses, influenza virology and one health, Respiratory syncytial virus, SARS-CoV-2, immunity to respiratory viruses, as well as antivirals, epidemiology, current and future influenza vaccines.
As a first the school also recorded an episode of This Week in Virology (TWIV) with Microbe TV with Vincent Racaniello and three faculty members. One of the highlights of the mini school was having the networking mini school dinner where faculty and students were able to meet and discuss the school and upcoming Options XII conference. Overall, the school received positive feedback from the students.
The fifth isirv Respiratory Virus School was held at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, India from the 14th to 18th November 2022 and was a great success. The school was hosted by Prof Cherry Kang, ably supported by CMC staff who attended as students and also as organisers and leaders. There were 59 students, who mainly came from India, but there were also students from Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Belgium.
The organising committee of Kanta Subbarao, Jackie Katz, Becky Cox, Jude Jayamaha and Cherry Kang assembled an excellent teaching programme consisting of both lectures and interactive sessions and the teaching faculty was first class. Most of the lectures/sessions were conducted face-to-face but inevitably some of the faculty could not travel or had difficulty travelling so their contributions were by either live streaming or video recordings. CMC made recordings of all the lectures, which will be made available to isirv, subject to permission from faculty members.
Most of the students paid a registration fee to attend the school, but 17 students attended by virtue of a CMC travel scholarship and 7 students attended on a Lars Haaheim travel scholarship. Isirv supported the attendance of the four isirv Council members of faculty, Becky Cox, Jude Jayamaha, Bala (G K Balasubramani) and John Wood. The feedback from students was very good and many commented how privileged they were to attend. We are very grateful to Cherry and her staff for organising such an excellent and enjoyable teaching experience. As a postscript, three of the students were very keen to host the next school in their own countries of Nigeria, Argentina or Brazil, so this is something we will pursue.
The School of Respiratory Viruses in its 4th edition took place at the American University in Beirut between May 7 and 11. Seventy four students attended the course. Half of the attendees were from Lebanon, while the rest came from 20 countries from within the Eastern Mediterranean Region, Europe, Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia. Over the course of 5 days, 21 speakers including local, regional, and international scientists provided a comprehensive understanding of various topics and recent breakthroughs related to influenza and MERS-CoV including their epidemiology, genetics, virology, diagnosis, prevention and management. In addition, 9 students presented their projects during the School. The School provided an opportunity for junior scientists from diverse countries to network and interact with senior scientists. Vibrant and lively discussions took place throughout the School activities. The students also participated in a popular pandemic preparedness exercise and a lab rotations that covered basic techniques used in influenza virus research. The School’s programme was also accredited by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME).
Feedback on the School
The feedback from speakers and attendees was very positive and a summary of the feedback from attendees is attached as an annex. Overall 88% of the students found the talks either useful or extremely useful. The most popular talks were those on vaccines, including immune responses and vaccination strategy; new approaches to vaccines; pandemic planning, especially the role-playing exercise; and the two keynote talks by Ab Osterhaus. In their more detailed comments, the best aspects of the School were having good international speakers and a good programme and many commented that the pandemic planning exercise was fun and very informative.
Accreditation
The School’s programme received 31 European CME credits (ECMEC) by the EACCME. EACCME aims at encouraging the highest standards in the development, delivery and harmonization of CME and CPD and provides accreditation of international CME in Europe. The credits are also recognised outside Europe. The School offered the platform to acquaint isirv with the requirements, process and timeframe required to obtain this accreditation for an educational event but also highlighted important aspects of the design and delivery of isirv educational events, some of which are shared in the recommendations below.
Finances
The Wellcome Trust (WT) provided funding (US$7,500) for travel awards of four students and four further students were supported by the Lars Haaheim Travel Fellowship.
Moreover, the School was an opportunity to work closely with WHO country and regional offices (EMRO and SEAO) who showed great interest in sponsoring their own personnel as well as scientists from their region.
After a successful first edition in 2011, a second Summer School on Influenza was held in Siena (Italy) from 16 to 20 July 2012. The Summer School was organised and supported by the University of Siena and ISIRV, co-chaired by Emanuele Montomoli, Jackie Katz and John Wood.
It was designed for those who were newly started on their influenza careers, be it in basic or applied research, government or private sector activities and it was attended by 35 students from Australia, Europe, Egypt, Senegal, India, Philippines, South America and the USA. The students were provided with an excellent introduction to many aspects of influenza ranging from theoretical concepts to basic techniques used in research and surveillance. The scientific programme was organised into seven different themes: history, epidemiology and ecology of influenza; prevention and control; influenza virology and pathogenesis; immunity to influenza; influenza vaccines; antivirals and other therapies; regulatory practices and challenges. Two special seminars were focused on vaccination (Rino Rappuoli) and on the 2009 Pandemic (Angus Nicoll).
The Summer School on Influenza also gave us an opportunity to recall the figure of Lars Haaheim, co-chair of the first edition who untimely died on June 28, 2011, two months before the beginning of the school. Tributes to Lars’ scientific achievements and personal qualities were paid during the course, and thanks to the financial support of the ISRV Antiviral Group , and the Wellcome Trust seven scholarships were created in his honour (The Lars Haaheim Scholarships), in order to support students from developing countries.
From 1-5 August 2011, some of the leading influenza experts from around the world visited the beautiful city of Siena to lecture at the Summer School on Influenza. The Summer School was a new initiative, which was co-chaired by Emanuele Montomoli from the University of Siena and Lars Haaheim from the University of Bergen, Norway. They were ably assisted by excellent organising and international scientific committees and by the support of isirv. Sadly Lars was not able to be present at the Summer School due to his untimely death a couple of months before (link to obituary). Lars was an enthusiastic advocate of the Summer School and had personally invited many of the speakers. Tributes to Lars’ scientific achievements and personal qualities were paid during the Summer School.
The Summer School was designed for those who were newly started on their influenza careers, be it in basic or applied research, government or private sector activities and it was attended by 35 students from Australia, Europe, Egypt, India, Senegal, South America and the USA. The students were provided with an excellent introduction to many aspects of influenza ranging from theoretical concepts to basic techniques used in research and surveillance. The scientific programme was organised into eight different themes: societal impact; global influenza surveillance and prevention; human and animal influenza; pathogenesis; immunology; vaccines; antivirals; and finally regulatory issues. Two special seminars were focused on vaccination (Rino Rappuoli) and on the 2009 Pandemic (Angus Nicoll).
The students attending the Summer School appreciated the opportunity to learn more about influenza and to network with both young and “seasoned” influenza scientists. All agreed that Siena was a fantastic location and welcomed the two evening social events which showcased the city and its surrounds. Isirv was pleased to support this teaching initiative and thanks are due in particular to Francesca Marzari for organizing the Summer School.