3TR consortium gathers online for its second annual meeting

On 20-21 October, the 3TR consortium gathered once more virtually for its annual meeting. Originally planned as a face-to-face meeting in Amsterdam, the 3TR consortium again had to succumb to the COVID-19 pandemic, since various consortium members were still not allowed to travel and restrictions rendered organising a conference with about 200 participants impossible. While it was acknowledged that the virtual meeting does not fully substitute a meeting in person, the 69 academic and industrial partners enjoyed to learn about the work progress achieved in the past year. The leaders of the ten work packages and several working groups reported critical steps made in moving the project forward from the setup phase to the execution phase. “Having established the management structures and procedures for sample and data collection, designed the prospective clinical studies and created data interpretation groups, we have built a strong foundation to start profiling and analysing existing samples from retrospective studies and to start the 3TR clinical studies”, Terry Means (Sanofi) concluded at the end of the meeting. “Of course, we have faced substantial setbacks due to COVID-19”, Marta Alarcón Riquelme (FPS) stated in her review of the past year, “physicians had been involved in COVID-19 response, on-going clinical studies were suspended, laboratories closed and travel has been banned. But we are excited about the ongoing activities and look forward to continue the work with valuable contributions from all 3TR partners.” At the next annual meeting, the consortium is hoping to be finally able to meet in person again.

For more information on upcoming project outputs, follow us also on twitter @3TR_IMI.