Report 5th nEUROgastro TANDEM meeting in London
As it was the aim for the past TANDEM meetings, also the 5th nEUROgastro TANDEM meeting in 2025 was creating a platform for building up successful collaborations, reinforcing the crosstalk between clinical and basic research and creating a European network of young investigators and bring together a new set of valuable expertise to discover new knowledge in the scientific field of Neurogastroenterology. Announced by the respective National Neurogastroenterology Societies, GENIEUR network and ESNM, the nEUROgastro TANDEM meeting 2025 was held at the “place of birth” of Neurogastroenterology, the Wingate Institute of Queen Mary University of London, from September 1st to 3rd and was funded for the first time by the UEG activity grant 2024.
The organizing committee, headed by Chloé Melchior (MD, PhD, University Rouen Normandie, Gastroenterology Department and CIC CRB 1404, Rouen University Hospital, Rouen France) and Kristin Elfers (VMD, PhD, University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Foundation, Germany), supported by a local team (Ruqaya Idrees, MD, Queen Mary University of London; Fiona Tudehope, MD, Wingate Institute, Queen Mary University of London, Barts Health Network London and Reuma Yehuda-Margalit, MD, Wingate Institute, Queen Mary University of London) selected twenty participants (70% female, 30% male) originating from 13 European countries and being at different career stages and levels of education. The selection process was based on the applicants presented grade of motivation to come up with project ideas, their track records and reference letters. Whenever possible, MDs were matched with PhD students according to their indicated main field of scientific/clinical interest, three months prior to the meeting. Each team was mentored by one member of the organizing committee, who advised them on how to design a translational research project based on common interests and available methods and the budget of 5,000 € and gave feedback on risen project ideas and preliminary presentations.
Finally, each team came up with a 20-minute presentation of their project idea at the nEUROgastro TANDEM meeting, followed byquestion and interaction with the audience, which aimed to improve the project and to clarify certain aspects, in a friendly and cooperative atmosphere. All presented projects were scored by the participants and the organizing committee, according to the following criteria: (1) innovativeness, (2) feasibility, (3) methodology, (4) budget planning, (5) presentation and (6) teamwork. The maximum budget to be spent on each project was 5,000 €, which corresponded to the amount awarded to the highest-evaluated winning project. This price money is intended as a start-up budget to be used by the winning team to generate the preliminary data necessary to apply for further grants.
The winning team presented their project idea, its impact, novelty and potential during the “Shaping our future: Learning from the best research papers published in the Neurogastroenterology and Motility Journal 2024 and Early Career Researcher Highlights” session taking place at the main Meeting of the European Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility - NeuroGASTRO 2025 - at Queen Mary University of London, from September 4th to September 6th. It was attended by many interested participants and greatly appreciated. On behalf of the entire organizing committee, we would like to congratulate Laura Diaz (PhD, Germany) and Morgane E. Le Dréan (PhD, Ireland), for convincingly combining their knowledge and ideas towards the creation of an innovative investigation study entitled: “IBSycle: Deciphering gut microbiome signature behind IBS and menstrual pain”.
The scientific questions raised in the study outline will be addressed in the respective working countries, including mutual visits. Greatly appreciated, this year, ESNM also provided a 5,000€ for the second ranked team, which scored nearly as high as Laura and Morgane. Therefore, congratulations to Tom van Gils and Marija Mužić for their project “DIALOG: The links between DGBI and Inflammatory ALimentary Diseases: Opinions of Gastroenterologists”!
We are convinced that both awarded TANDEMs will present first promising results of their joined projects at the next European NeuroGASTRO Meeting - organized in Leuven, Belgium, in 2027 and during one of the future UEG weeks.
The nEUROgastro TANDEM organizing committee would like to particularly acknowledge the participation of Dr. Madusha Peiris and Prof. Frank Zerbib as invited senior speakers to the meeting, thanking them for their inspiring talks, which showed us how a successful career in the field of Neurogastroenterology can be developed and how outstanding achievements can be reached. Their talks were greatly appreciated by the audience.
Feedback given by all TANDEM participants by an anonymous survey, which results are partly presented in the figure below, clearly showed that all of them greatly appreciated and enjoyed the time spent together, highlighted the importance of this event for their scientific and personal development and indicated that they would recommend this event to other people.
Furthermore, to maintain the connections made during the TANDEM meeting, to establish further fruitful collaborations beyond it and to integrate young, promising gastroenterologists into the European network of gastroenterology, the young ESNM group, founded in 2024, was presented to the TANDEM participants and information how to become a member was provided.
