Greetings from ICOPA2026!
As part of our new MCID Postcards series, MCID members are sending a few impressions home from the conferences, meetings and events they visit around the world. Our first postcard comes from Montréal, Canada, where the International Congress of Parasitology (ICOPA2026) brought together parasitologists and infectious disease researchers from across the globe at the end of August. The MCID was well represented, with Prof. Carmen Faso, Prof. Britta Lundström-Stadelmann, Prof. Dr. med. vet. Walter Basso and PhD student Emily Bessell among those attending.
Two speakers particularly made an impression: Prof. Peter Hotez and Prof. Adrian Hill. Peter Hotez opened the congress with a powerful lecture on neglected tropical diseases and the communities that continue to bear their enormous health and socioeconomic burden. He also turned his attention to the growing challenge of anti-science movements, particularly anti-vaccination narratives, which have become increasingly sophisticated and widespread alongside social media, health influencers and other online science communicators. On a more hopeful note, Adrian Hill brought plenty of optimism with his presentation on the latest malaria vaccine developed by his team. The combination of its efficacy, relatively straightforward production and, particularly, the level of protection seen in very young children four years after vaccination was hugely encouraging. Given the decades of work by parasitologists and vaccinologists to develop effective malaria vaccines, these results could represent an important step forward.
And perhaps one of the most encouraging things about ICOPA2026 was simply its truly global nature. With colleagues from all over the world, around 1,600 posters and a strong presence of early-career researchers, the congress was a great reminder of the breadth, diversity and international collaboration at the heart of parasitology research.
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