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First Round of Abstract Submission Ends: Dec 30, 2025
Extended Early Bird Ends: May 20, 2025

Plenary Speakers

Prof. Dan Brockman
Royal Veterinary College, UK
Title: Surgical treatment of myxomatous mitral valve disease: the route to success
Dan is a Professor in Small Animal Surgery and a recognised RCVS, European and American Specialist in Small Animal Surgery. He is also a provider of CPD worldwide.
Dan graduated from Liverpool University in 1987. After eighteen months in mixed practice in South Yorkshire, he began a residency in small animal surgery at the University of Liverpool. Dan gained an RCVS Certificate in Veterinary Radiology in 1990 and a Certificate in Small Animal Orthopaedics in 1991. He moved to the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 as a Lecturer in Surgery and where he became Assistant Professor of Surgery in 1994. He became a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1999 and diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Surgeons in 2000. He joined the Royal Veterinary College as a Lecturer in Small Animal Soft Tissue Surgery in October 2000 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2003. He was awarded a Chair in 2007 and was head of the Department of Clinical Science and Services at the Royal Veterinary College between 2009 and 2016.
Prof. Yvon LE MAHO
Hubert Curien Multi-disciplinary Institute, CNRS, France
Title: Robotics and bio-logging to investigate animals in the field or under human care without disturbance and subsequent bias
Yvon LE MAHO is Emeritus Director of Research at the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) in Strasbourg. His main interest is to understand the physiological and behavioral mechanisms enabling wild animals to cope with environmental conditions, i.e. climate and food resources. In return, these mechanisms are a source of biomedical innovation, such as leading to the discovery in penguins of an antimicrobial molecule, which is very efficient against the main agents of nosocomial diseases. He has initiated a program on marine turtles of French Guyana, which now includes the Caribbean. To avoid the disturbance and subsequent bias induced by human presence in fieldwork, he has pioneered the use of new technology such as Radiofrequency Identification and Robotics. He has authored/coauthored about 330 papers in international journals, including 12 in Nature. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, of the Academia Europaea, an associated member of the French Academy of Pharmacy and a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. He has chaired the Scientific Committee and the Board of the French Polar Institute. He is a member of the editorial boards of « Integrative Zoology » and « Science in one Health ».
Prof. Damer Blake
Royal Veterinary College, UK
Title: Understanding host - parasite - microbiome contributions to broiler chicken gut health and dysbiosis
Following a PhD focused on bacterial genetics from the University of Aberdeen, Damer began working in the area of poultry gut health in 2001 at the Institute for Animal Health (IAH, UK). During his time at IAH he carried out fundamental and applied genetics-led research into coccidiosis, contributing to the Eimeria genome sequencing consortium and working towards new, cost-effective anticoccidial vaccines. Damer joined the Royal Veterinary College in 2010, becoming Professor of Parasite Genetics in 2016. Current research strands include population genetic analyses of recognised and new Eimeria species, development of novel vaccine delivery strategies, understanding the genetic basis of host resistance to coccidiosis, interactions of Eimeria with bacterial microbiota of poultry, dysbiosis and wider aspects of gut health. Recent work includes exploring host – parasite – microbiome interactions in Asian and European chicken production systems, understanding the impact of host genotype and antimicrobial exposure. In 2017 Damer became Editor-in-Chief of the journal Avian Pathology.
Prof. Marion Boutinaud
PEGASE, INRAE, Institut Agro, France
Title: Nutritional strategies to optimize the immune and antioxidant status of dairy cows.
Dr Marion Boutinaud is a Research Director at INRAE UMR PEGASE in the animal biology functions group (35 Saint Gilles, France). She completed her PhD on goat lactation physiology at INRA (Jouy-en-Josas) and received her PhD at the ENSA (Rennes, France) in 2002. She then followed a postdoctoral training at the Hannah Research Institute on lactation physiology in mice developing RT PCR approaches on mammary tissue and cells (Ayr, Scotland). Since 2003, she has conducted research studies in the field of ruminant lactation biology on the mammary cellular and molecular determinants for milk production. Dr Boutinaud has pioneered an innovative and non-invasive technique to study mammary gland function: the isolation of mammary epithelial cells from milk. She also explores the role of mammary tissue in preventing mastitis. She supervised two post doctoral fellows, 5 PhD and 10 master degree students, and a final year vetenarian school student. She has more than 58 peer-reviewed research publications in national and international journals and written one book chapter. She is member of the Galactinnov scientific committee, a Franco-Quebec scientific network.
Prof. BAEZA-CAMPONE Elisabeth
UMR Biologie des Oiseaux et Aviculture, France
Title: What strategies to limit the chicken meat quality defects, wooden breast, white striping and spaghetti muscle?
Elisabeth Baéza obtained first a diploma of Engineer in Agronomy (ENSFA, Rennes, France) specialized on Animal Productions, then a PhD in Animal Sciences from the University of Montpellier (France). She was recruited at INRAE Nouzilly Centre (France) in 1993 to work on waterfowl production and poultry meat quality. The main achievement of her research activity is to have highlighted the major determinants of duck meat quality and the main factors influencing these parameters. She also investigates the oxidation susceptibility of meat and the antioxidant status of animals according to feed composition and supplementation with antioxidant additives. She is a member of the World Poultry Science Association and participated to the organization of many congress relatives to Poultry Meat Quality and Waterfowl Production. She has more than 138 peer-reviewed research publications in national and international journals and written three book chapters. She was co-author of a French book on duck production published in 2012. She teaches Poultry Meat Quality to undergraduate students. She guided 4 students in doctoral degrees on Poultry Science including Duck Production. She is an associated editor for “INRAE Productions Animales” and “European Poultry Science” journals. She has an expertise activity for the French Agency on Food and Environment Safety (ANSES).