The IABS-EU, in association with PROVAXS and Ghent University, hosted the “2 nd Conference on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for Adventitious Virus Detection in Human and Veterinary Biologics” held on November 13 th and 14 th 2019, in Ghent, Belgium. The meeting brought together international experts from regulatory agencies, the biotherapeutics and biologics industries, contract research organizations, and academia, with the goal to develop a scientific consensus on the readiness of NGS for detecting adventitious viruses, and on the use of this technology to supplement or replace/substitute the currently used assays. Participants discussed the progress on the standardization and validation of the technical and bioinformatics steps in NGS for characterization and safety evaluation of biologics, including human and animal vaccines. It was concluded that NGS can be used for the detection of a broad range of viruses, including novel viruses, and therefore can complement, supplement or even replace some of the conventional adventitious virus detection assays. Furthermore, the development of reference viral standards, complete and correctly annotated viral databases, and protocols for the validation and follow-up investigations of NGS signals is necessary to enable broader use of NGS. An international collaborative effort, involving regulatory authorities, industry, academia, and other stakeholders is ongoing toward this goal.

Please download the full report of the conference here:

https://provaxs.be/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1439.pdf

On 4 December 2020, Panagiota Ligda will defend her PhD thesis on

Waterborne and foodborne transmission of cryptosporidium and Giardia in Northern Greece

Due to current Covid-19 measures, the defence will only be accessible online. If you wish to attend, please register by sending an email to
Ligda.Panagiota@UGent.be to recieve a personal invitation.

On 27 November 2020, Bert Damiaans will defend his PhD thesis on

Investigating and quantifying biosecurity in
Belgian cattle production

The defense will take place on Friday 27 November 2020 at 17h.
Due to the current Covid-19 measures, the defense will only be accessible via live-stream. If you wish to participate in the videoconference,
please register by sending an e-mail to bert.damiaans@ugent.be to receive a personal invitation.

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Access to the system, which is marketed as a SaaS-based solution can be offered through an API.

Biocheck uses a calculation algorithm which takes into account all important risk factors, their frequency of occurrence, and interactions. It has been developed through years of scientific research and has been used and validated successfully in multiple studies pertaining to biosecurity.

Biocheck is unique in its kind, it is the only system available that provides a risk-based quantitative evaluation of biosecurity at farm-level.

Biocheck is continuously improved to stay in line with the most recent scientific insights. It has one of the largest databases, increasing continuously in size and global coverage, with biosecurity practices around the world. It has gathered international recognition as one of the most user-friendly and advanced systems of its kind.

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