It is my great pleasure to invite you all to the 14th International Meeting of the European Calcium Society (ECS). This meeting belongs to the series of biennial international meetings of the ECS which are now well established in the scientific community and are well known for both their scientific excellence and their highly convivial atmosphere. At each of those meetings 250-300 participants coming not only from all over Europe, but also from North and South America and Asia participate and discuss. Especially important is that the ECS prides itself to always support the participation of pre- and post-doctoral researchers with travel fellowships and awards for best posters / best oral communication, leading to a large number of junior scientists attending.
In 2016, and this for the very first time in the history of the ECS, our International Meeting will occur in Spain, and more in particular in Valladolid, a city with a great and proud heritage of history, culture and science, and a city reputed for its sense of hospitality.
The Local Organizing Committee, headed by Carlos Villalobos, is working in a perfect partnership with the ECS Board and the ECS Scientific Committee to organize a meeting which promises to be a huge success at all levels.
As you can see from the program, we have chosen for this meeting a number of new and exciting topics, including various aspects of Ca2+ signalling in disease and in therapy, new information on the structural aspects of the Ca2+ channels, novel functions of the Ca2+ ion and new technical approaches.
Other novelties in the program are the 3 plenary lectures (instead of the customary two) and the scheduling of a session for the presentation of late-breaking work.
As always, you are all invited to submit abstracts of your work and this on any aspect of the Ca2+ ion. These abstracts can be presented as posters or selected for oral communication. However, to increase the visibility of the posters, we will also have a poster flash session in which selected posters will receive the opportunity to be (very briefly) presented orally.
Taken together, we think we will so have a very exciting mix of high-level science, in which all the aspects of Ca2+ will be highlighted and discussed.
Finally, it is good to know that the Local Organizing Committee is also scheduling various extra-scientific activities in order to let you see and taste the best of Valladolid, and this certainly form additional incentives to participate…
For all these reasons I hope you are convinced that participating to our 14th International Meeting is more than worthwhile and I am really looking forward meeting you there!
See you in Valladolid,
Jan B. Parys,
Chair of the Scientific Committee