The ICS is extremely proud to announce that Scott Hultgren of Washington University in St. Louis has agreed to give the opening state of the art lecture in Montreal. The lecture on Recurrent urinary tract infections: immunity, biofilms and clinical prevention will take place on Wednesday 7th October at 08.00am.

Dr. Hultgren’s work is changing the way urinary tract infections (UTIs) are evaluated, re-shaping models of bacterial infections and spawning new technologies to design novel vaccines and anti-microbial therapeutics to diagnose, treat and/or prevent UTIs and their sequelae. He has shown that the lifestyles and behaviours of bacteria play critical roles in UTIs. Hultgren’s interdisciplinary research has combined clinical and basic research to elucidate specific disease-causing interactions between pathogens and patients illuminating the pathogenesis of urinary tract infection.

Hultgren determined:

1. the structural basis of bladder colonisation and tissue invasion by uropathogenic E. coli;
2. how this interaction activates potent host defenses;
3. how E. coli evades host defenses, and antibiotic treatment, by invading the bladder epithelium and forming transient biofilm-like intracellular bacterial communities that eventually disperse to establish quiescent intracellular reservoirs and;
4. how these reservoirs can seed recurrent UTIs. He also uncovered complex networks that determine predisposition to recurrent UTI.
   Finally, Hultgren delineated mechanisms of catheter-associated UTI caused by Enterococcus and E. coli.

Hultgren is translating his work into novel clinical approaches for the treatment and prevention of UTI and will without a doubt provide a fascinating and highly educational presentation.