2024 IUPB-MEPSA Congress

Congress website: https://www.icpworldcongress.com/

The 18th International Congress on Photobiology was a joint congress of the International Union for Photobiology (IUPB) and the Molecular and Experimental Pathology Society of Australasia (MEPSA). It was held from the 25-30 August, 2024, at the Pan Pacific, in Perth, the City of Light, in Western Australia. The Chairs of the congress were Janet Bornman, the IUPB President, and Scott Byrne, the MEPSA President. The local organising committee comprised the two Chairs, Janet Bornman (Murdoch University, WA) and Scott Byrne (University of Sydney, NSW), Katie Dixon (MEPSA secretary, University of Sydney, NSW), Evelyne Sage (IUPB secretary, Institut Curie, FR), and Franz Trautinger (IUPB Treasurer, St Pölten University, AT).

The International Organising Committee, the Society Presidents’ Committee and a large Scientific Advisory Board contributed to the content and framework of the scientific programme. The congress program was structured around 6 themes that cover the key areas in Photobiology: Photobiology, health and disease with 12 symposia, Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) with 10 symposia, Physical and Chemical Photobiology with 6 symposia, Plant and Micro-organism Photobiology with 7 symposia, Environmental Photobiology with 2 symposia and Applied Photobiology and Innovation, with 7 symposia (see Annex 1). The 44 symposia, run in parallel sessions, comprised 179 invited talks and 24 oral communications. The program also included the Presidential lectures (2), the IUPB and MEPSA Awards lectures (respectively 5 and 1), 6 Keynote lectures on each of the 6 themes, and 2 Industrial Keynote lectures
(CLINUVEL and Invion – RMWC Unlimited Innovation), a short oral communication symposium and a poster session (40 posters). IUPB and MEPSA selected 4 Poster prizes and 2 prizes for Oral communications.

The congress registered 234 delegates from 33 countries and 5 continents (see Annex 2-3). Although registration fees (250 €) were low for students and post-docs, their participation was very low, about 23, among which 5 were invited lecturers.

Congress support was generously provided by Business Events Perth, International Union for Biological Sciences, IUBS (Conference sponsoring and Early Career Scientists Grant), and various companies, including Omicron, Bioderma/NAOS, L’Oréal, Clinuvel, Invion and RMWCHO, Modulight, Skinosive, Springer Nature, La Roche Posay, Propaira, and additional exhibitors – International Commission on Illumination (CIE), Australian Photometry and Radiometry Laboratory, and Mistine. A large part of the sponsoring was used to cover speakers’ costs. Springer Nature, the publisher of the European Society for Photobiology (ESP) journal, Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences, offered several hardcopies of journal issues and themed books, which were given to the recipients of the poster prizes.