The inaugural “Trematodes 2024” conference was held from the 8th to the 13th of September 2024, hosted at the Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Australia.
The conference was attended by more than 80 delegates from institutions across 22 countries. The scientific programme included eight invited addresses, 58 oral presentations, 25 poster presentations, and five workshops. The conference covered a wide range of topics, including trematode taxonomy and systematics, evolution, life cycles, ecology, pathology and disease, and biogeography.
NRC researcher Dr Olena Kudlai was a part of the conference organizing committee and the youngest invited speaker. During her plenary talk “Navigating new waters: assessing the diversity of trematodes through their intermediate hosts” she spoke not only about aspects of her research on trematodes but also shared her career journey as a young female scientist with elements of “advice to young trematodologists”.
Another oral presentation delivered by Dr Kudlai focused on the changes in trematode diversity in freshwater fish in Lithuania over the past 40 years – the results of her ongoing project “Reviving fish parasitology in Lithuania: assessing the current helminth diversity in fish and the impact of non-native fish in Lithuanian freshwaters” conducted at NRC.
