On the 9th June 2023, the Sustainable Futures challenge area, Healthy Futures, held a one-day conference in partnership with the Lydia Becker Institute for Inflammation and Repair Ecoimmunology and the Manchester Environmental Research Institute.
The event was a one-day symposium to bring together researchers across faculties and disciplines around ‘OneHealth and Ecoimmunology: Exploring interactions between health, environmental challenges and disease’. It brought together research groups from across the university and beyond, with an interest in aspects of environmental health (encompassing ecosystems, biodiversity resilience, human health and immune responses).
The conference was composed of three main sessions which each included a keynote speaker, a number of flash talks and a break-out session to allow discussions among attendees. The day was wrapped up with a summary workshop and a networking session.
The first session centred around 'Ecoimmunology' and featured a keynote presentation titled 'Where the Wild Things Are: Naturalising mouse models for immunoparasitology' from Professor Andrea Graham of Princeton University. Dr Iris Mair of the Lydia Becker Institute followed with their own presentation.
Following this, a second session on pollution and contaminants was headed by a talk given by Dr Mark Miller called 'From car to coronary: the cardiovascular effects of diesel exhaust particles'. Dr Martie Van Tongeren from the University of Manchester subsequently gave their own presentation.
The third and final session focused on 'OneHealth and Inequality'. Dr James Hassel of the Smithsonian Institution gave a presentation titled 'Environmental change and emerging pathogens in Africa’s drylands; applying interdisciplinary research to address a blind spot in global health surveillance'.
After a series of engaging presentations and break-out sessions, the event was wrapped up with a workshop and networking session which allowed attendees to discuss the day's events.
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