Mid-February saw the first EACR virtual conference of the year – the third edition on the topic of immuno-oncology, where participants learned about the latest advances in the immunotherapy field. The meeting was held over two afternoons. 162 participants from 29 countries were in attendance.
Video recordings
At the discretion of the speakers, recorded talks will be available to participants of the meeting to watch back. As well as this, we have made Jedd Wolchok’s talk, “Checkpoint Blockade Therapy: Focusing on Combinations to Improve Outcomes”, publicly available to all on the EACR’s YouTube channel. You can watch Jedd’s talk below:
Participant feedback
The conference proved very popular. 100% of participants in the feedback survey said they would recommend EACR virtual conferences based on this meeting. In addition, 96% of participants rated the meeting’s scientific quality as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. Like our previous virtual conference on Liquid Biopsies, there were lots of positive comments made regarding the Virtual Poster Discussion Session on Gather, as well as the high quality of the speakers’ talks.
“The interactivity was highly preserved. The ‘Gather’ application had a real-life feeling to the poster presentations. I do prefer real-life events, but this was a very good and well organised alternative.”
“The poster session using the Gather interface really replaced a face-to-face meeting. In fact, it increased the networking, mimicking real-life interactions. The scientific presentations were excellent and very informative – it was a great meeting. Thank you.”
“The talks [were] amazing in terms of subject and the knowledge of the speakers. Since I am a PhD student, I felt comfortable in actively participating in the meeting asking questions and I think the chairs really appealed for that, and it was great!”
“We had extremely interesting presentations and speakers – well known speakers in the field. They enlightened and enriched us with their great current up-to date research and thorough experience in the field”
“The poster session in Gather was incredible!”
After the success of the Virtual Poster Discussion Session at the Virtual Liquid Biopsies meeting, we once again offered the session using the Gather platform. Poster Sessions are a vital networking aspect of in-person events, and we believe it is important to incorporate these sessions into our virtual events.
Gather is a fun tool that allows you to walk around a retro 2D ‘Poster Hall’ and video chat or message with poster presenters and other participants. You can personalise your avatar to look more like you, search for other participants by name, and even gather in groups for an informal chat.
This time, the session was 90 minutes long with the posters split into 3 ‘halls’, where presenters had 30 minutes in each to present and defend their posters, whilst also allowing time to view other posters. In total, over 70 people joined the session and there was plenty of discussion and networking.
#eacrImmunoOncology
As usual, we used a conference hashtag on social media to help participants engage with each other. Here are a few selected posts using the EACR hashtag:
We’d like to thank all speakers, poster presenters & participants for a stimulating #EACRImmunoOncology meeting, incl. our final panel discussion!
A special appreciation to the wonderful team behind the scenes @EACRnews & to the conference sponsors 🙏🏻
Joan, Jedd, Karin, Johanna pic.twitter.com/T6foVbqbWt
— Johanna Joyce (@Johanna_A_Joyce) February 17, 2021
Had the absolute privilege today of presenting my research alongside some giants in the field at #eacrImmunoOncology and looking forward to hearing more fascinating talks tomorrow. But will I ever not be nervous before a talk?! #AcademicChatter #ScienceTwitter
— Leanne Bradley (@_leannebradley) February 16, 2021
Had the amazing opportunity to present my work at #eacrImmunoOncology today! So many interesting talks and posters and some really inspirational speakers. https://t.co/er5gGsnl1C
— Sharon Grisaru (@GrisaruSharon) February 17, 2021
Future Virtual Events
We have more virtual conferences, regular ‘Meet the Expert’ and ‘How to…’ webinars and the EACR 2021 Virtual Congress coming up in the first half of 2021. There will be a range of topics, speakers and networking activities to keep an eye out for. To find out more, please visit the EACR Conferences page of our website.
