CONFERENCE REPORT
11^th International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides (IMAP 2024)
London, England, 2 – 4 September 2024

The 11^th International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides (IMAP 2024) took place in the King’s Building of King’s College London (KCL) located on the Strand in the heart of central London from the 2^nd to the 4^th of September 2024. (www.peptideconferences.org/imap-2024).

This annual Meeting, which began in 2008 in Leipzig, has seen a growing number of participants over the years, particularly young scientists interested in peptide science. The 2023 event in Trieste, Italy, marked the return of the series after being paused by the pandemic and attracted more than 100 attendees (photo 1).

The 2024 meeting covered a range of topics within the field of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), from their Prediction, Design & Synthesis; Prediction from AI / non-AI supported Data Mining; Mechanism of Action and Resistance; AMPs on Surfaces & Biomaterials; AMPs / HDPs in Immunomodulation to Applications & Therapeutics. The Organizing Committee consisted of Alethea Tabor, UCL, James Mason, KCL and Kai Hilpert, St. George’s University of London (co-chairs); Edwin Veldhuizen, Utrecht University; Lidia Feliu (Universitat de Girona); Ralf Hoffmann (Leipzig University); Maria Luisa Mangoni (Sapienza University of Rome). As with previous IMAPs, it was agreed that such a meeting should promote the participation of PhD students and postdocs offering them plenty of space to present their skills and to divulge the results of their scientific work. This has stimulated an intensive interaction among them and prompted the establishment of scientific collaborations as well as interpersonal relationships.

Ralf Hoffmann organized the first meeting in Leipzig in 2008 as a one-day meeting with about 40 participants from 8 countries. The 11^th IMAP was able to gather a total of 110 international participants from 22 countries among renowned speakers on the topic including 49 senior scientists, 13 postdocs and 38 PhD students who enjoyed the exchange of experiences and ideas in a friendly and informal atmosphere.

History of IMAP

Meeting	Location	Attendants/Participants
IMAP 2008	Leipzig, Germany	40 participants from 8 countries
IMAP 2012	Leipzig, Germany	110 participants from 9 countries
IMAP 2013	London, UK	55 participants from 22 countries
IMAP 2014	Graz, Austria	65 participants from 15 countries
IMAP 2015	London, UK	78 participants from 14 countries
IMAP 2016	Leipzig, Germany	120 participants from 26 countries
IMAP 2017	Copenhagen, Denmark	105 participants from 23 countries
IMAP 2018	Edinburgh, UK	144 participants from 29 countries
IMAP 2019	Utrecht, Netherlands	144 participants from 26 countries
IMAP 2023	Trieste, Italy	117 participants from 24 countries
IMAP 2024	London, UK	110 participants from 22 countries

Attendance of early-stage researchers was helped by the organisers being able to offer 11 travel bursaries to PhD students and postdocs who were presenting posters or talks. EPS sponsorship was acknowledged by the organizers during the meeting and the logo of the Society was displayed on the electronic materials of the conference (Programme & Abstracts Volume) as well as on the website of the IMAP meeting.

 

Scientific and Social Programme

The keynote lecture was given by Gus Wang (University of Nebraska Medical Center) who gave a talk covering the history and current status and applications of AMP databases (photo 2, left)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Symposium there were 7 presented lectures by the following invited speakers:

Prof Christine Chow, Wayne State University, who spoke about ‘Use of an inducible expression system to evaluate activity of ribosome-targeting, proline-rich antimicrobial peptides’.

Prof. Delphine Destoumieux-Garzon, Université de Montpellier, who spoke about ‘Big-Defensin Diversification in Oysters: Implications for Host Defense and Microbiota Management’.

Prof. Rachel Ee, National University of Singapore, who spoke about ‘Unravelling the roles of antimicrobial peptide nanonets in infection treatment and resistance prevention’.

Prof. Neeloffer Mookherjee, University of Manitoba, who spoke about ‘’The impact of the air we breathe on immunomodulatory host defence peptides.’

Dr Linda Oyama, Queen’s University Belfast, who spoke about ‘Repurposing antimicrobial peptides for difficult to treat infections’.

Dr Catherine Rowland, Bicycle Therapeutics, who spoke about ‘Development of novel non-covalent inhibitors of PBP3 (Bicycles®) as antimicrobials against clinically-relevant Enterobacterales’.

Prof. Roderich Süssmuth, Technische Universität Berlin, who spoke about ‘Structures and biosyntheses of class III and class IV lanthipeptides not only with antibacterial activities’.

Among 79 submitted abstracts, the Scientific Board selected 22 of them for oral presentation and 14 of them for rapid oral presentation.

The 36 abstracts which were not selected for oral communication were presented by scientists during poster sessions which were held during Lunch break of September 2 and 3 (photo 2, right). Unfortunately, of the original 79 abstracts submitted, 7 were withdrawn for a variety of reasons, including ill health, visa issues or because the authors could not obtain funding for travel. Two juries selected the two best posters and the two best rapid communications for early carrier researchers. The prices were presented at the end of the conference by Prof. Alethea Tabor, representing the Protein & Peptide Science Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry (sponsors of the poster competition) and Dr. Edwin Veldhuizen (chair of the judging panel).

 

The winners of the Poster Competition were (photo 3):

• 1st place Shyam Kumar Mishra, University of New South Wales for his poster ‘Mechanistic insights of a guanidine-functionalized anthranilamide peptidomimetic on Candida auris’.
• 2nd place Sascha Jung, Technische Universität Berlin for his poster ‘Harnessing antifungal peptides from filamentous fungi in drug development’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The winners of the Best Short Oral Communication were (photo 6):

• 1st place Rosanna Culurciello, Department of Biology, University of Naples “Federico II” for her paper ‘KNR50: a new encouraging Host Defence Peptide hidden in the C’-terminus of bovine casein αS2’.
• 2nd place Dhanya Mahalakshmi Murali, Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore for her paper ‘Influence of Tryptophan Insertion on the Fibrillation Capacity and Antimicrobial Efficacy of β-Hairpin Antimicrobial Peptides’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The social events of IMAP included 5 coffee-breaks, 1 welcome reception and 3 lunches. The welcome reception on the first evening was held on the 8^th floor of the historic Bush House, formerly the home of the BBC World Service. The roof terrace gave wonderful views over London which were enjoyed by all.

On the second evening the social dinner was attended by more than 60 participants who enjoyed the excellent catering provided by KCL in the same attractive surroundings.

The organisers were able to provide 10 PhD students and early-stage post-docs with travel bursaries, in part funded by the generous support of the EPS. It is hoped that this will be a regular feature of future IMAPs.

IMAP 2025 will take place in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), Dublin, Republic of Ireland from August 25 – 27. The co-chairs will be Prof. Marc Devocelle (RCSI) and Prof. Marina Rubini (University College Dublin).

IMAP 2026 will take place in Split, Croatia in early September 2026 (the final date is yet to be fixed).