We hope that our members who attended the past BELVIR Symposium on 14 December 2023, enjoyed both the scientific and social aspects of this event. We wish to thank all attendees for contributing to the open atmosphere within our BELVIR community. Also, many thanks and congratulations to all speakers who shared with us their newest findings and passion for virology.

Keynote Speakers:

• Prof. Wendy Barclay (Imperial College, London):

  "Host range barriers to influenza pandemics"
  

• Prof. Benson Ogunjimi (University of Antwerp)

  "Using multidisciplinary approaches to improve the understanding of varicella-zoster virus pathophysiology"

Highlights

Our 2023 Symposium was an absolute success with​:

Over 215 attendees

Keynote Speakers:

• Prof. Dr. Geoffrey L. Smith (Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)

  "Evasion of innate immunity by vaccinia virus: does monkeypox virus do so too?"

• Prof. Dr. Linos Vandekerckhove (HIV Cure Research Center, Ghent University, Ghent)

  "In search of the missing link between HIV plasma virus and the cellular proviral reservoir." 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Belgian Society for Virology held its annual meeting ONLINE on Monday December 13. The usual programme was maintained, with live Q&A sessions for keynotes and long presentations. All presentations were pre-recorded and shown during the day.

Keynote Speakers:

• Prof. Dr. Gunther Hartmann (University Hospital Bonn, UKB, Germany)
  "Nucleic Acid Immunity"

• Prof. Dr. David Alsteens (Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology, UCLouvain, Belgium)
  "Probing Virus Binding Sites to Animal Cells Using Atomic Force Microscopy"