Finalist
IMPROVE 2022: Building True Global Scientific Exchange from Nothing
Summary of work
Genetic variants in the hypothalamic melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R) pathway can impair hunger regulation, food intake, satiety and energy expenditure. Rare MC4R pathway diseases lead to hyperphagia (uncontrollable eating) and early-onset severe obesity, devastating patients and caregivers, who face extreme ill health, early death and crippling stigma from early childhood.
IMPROVE 2022: International Meeting on Pathway-Related Obesity: Vision of Excellence was the first-ever scientific exchange focused solely on management of rare diseases of the MC4R pathway.
Working with all the global experts in the field, a specialist scientific-exchange meeting for over 100 hand-picked and invited delegates from around the world.
100% of delegates rated the relevance of content presented as excellent (86%)/good (14%), and 100% rated the insights they gathered as excellent (82%)/good (18%). Nearly 30 academic posters were submitted, covering a range of topics, including genetic obesity variants, genetic testing and case studies.
A ‘conference proceedings’ manuscript is being prepared for submission to a key journal, with the meeting chairs as co-authors and delegates from one workshop currently investigating using the outputs to begin updating relevant guidelines.
After only one year, the meeting is a fixture in the calendar, with all global experts again set to be involved in 2023.
Judges’ comments
Aurora and Rhythm Pharmaceuticals’ entry had a strategy that took account of the situation and the results showed that they concentrated on specific points of the programme so that they could exceed their objectives. The judges liked the detail and clear picture of what they delivered. It had nice research in the beginning to find the need.
