850 of the world's top medical scientists gathered in Budapest last weekend to discuss their latest research in the autoimmune diseases. The conference filled two big hotels, the Sofitel and the the Intercontinental.
The last conf, in 2002, had a focus on 'infection and autoimmunity', which was continued in 2004. The abstracts of all the presentations were published in a special supplement issue of "Autoimmunity Reviews" and should (eventually) be available online at URL http://tinyurl.com/62qtr
Liz and I stayed at the (cheaper) Art'otel on the other bank of the Danube, the "Buda" bank, just a 20 minute walk across 'the chain bridge' from the conference centers on the "Pest" side of the Danube. here is a photo from near our hotel, looking across the Danube to the "pest" side. You can see the chain bridge, and the Sofitel hotel sign is just to the right rear of the leftmost illuminated bridge tower. Tour boats moored on the Danube were used as restaurants.
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The 'chain bridge' is a suspension bridge using metal plates instead of the more conventional wire cables. Here is a photo of the suspension assemblies
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Here is a view of the main conference halls during the plenary session
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And here is my presentation, which was in the Sofitel
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The view out of the window of our hotel room looked up to the castle-hill area, and here is a shot of the cathedral area
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On the final evening we had dinner with Dr Bela Bozsik, of the Hungarian Lyme Federation. Bela has been reseaching chronic lyme for several decades, and is a virtual goldmine of information
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All in all it was an amazing conference, and it will take many weeks to follow up on all the new contacts we made, and assimilate the huge amount of information presented there.
