WIMANET online kick-off meeting

The very first meeting in the framework of this COST action was held to bring everyone to the same level of knowledge on WIMANET. After the COST Science Officer, Federica Ortelli, and the Administrative Officer, Aldona Gembalik, greeted the wildlife malaria community in the form of the WIMANET management committee (MC), they were introducing the COST association, COST actions, how they are structured and how planned.

This introduction was followed by a so-called COST Action Café. In four rounds of the discussion, the participants were invited to join online breakout rooms organised by Working Group topics. The working groups of WIMANET are the following: WG1) Coordinating genomics, transcriptomics, and molecular markers; WG2) Incorporating molecular markers and morphology to assign wildlife malaria lineages to species; WG3) Vector transmission success in wildlife malaria; WG4) Impact of anthropogenic activities and wildlife malaria on host haematology; WG5) Drivers of spatiotemporal variation in multi-host-parasite communities; and WG6) Coordinating and implementing the CBOs.

Then it was time for some polls. Jenny Dunn (UK) was elected Chair, Alfonso Marzal (ES) was elected Vice Chair and the MC selected University of Lincoln as Grant Holder Institution, represented at the MC by Jenny Dunn. Further, the MC elected Alexandra Corduneanu (Romania) as the Grant Awarding Co-ordinator and Tamara Emmenegger (Switzerland) as the Science Communication Co-ordinator. Also all Working Group Leads (L) and some first Co-leads (CL) were elected unanimously (WG1: Nayden Chakarov (Germany) (L); WG2: Melanie Duc (Lithuania) (L), Ravinder Sehgal (US) (CL); WG3: Josué Martínez-de la Puente (Spain) (L), Carolina Chagas (Lithuania) (CL); WG4: Swen Renner (Austria) (L), Diego Santiago-Alarcon (US) (CL); WG5: Kasun Bodawatta (Denmark); WG6: Martina Ferraguti (Spain).

Finally the next milestones and deliverables to be achieved for each working group during Grant Period 1 were presented. Along with all other detailed minutes from the meeting these can be found here.