ICGNMD fellows attend World Muscle Society Conference in Charleston, USA

Three ICGNMD fellows Dr Sharika Raga, Dr Kireshnee Naidu and Dr. Vishnu VY recently attended the World Muscle Society conference in Charleston, USA.

Dr Sharika Raga and Dr Kireshnee Naidu were first time attendees at the 2023 World Muscle Society conference in Charleston, USA. Dr. Vishnu VY was attending for the second time and is a member of the congress Programme committee. They report: “We were awarded this opportunity through the ICGNMD and the WMS, and thoroughly enjoyed every moment. Some of the highlights of the conference for us included the pre-congress teaching course, incredible networking opportunities and meeting colleagues from various backgrounds. All the talks were insightful and informative, from the pre-congress teaching course, symposiums and short oral presentations. In addition there were about 400 excellent posters on a variety of topics that we got to peruse during the poster sessions as well as during the breaks”.

Sharika presented a poster and short oral presentation entitled ‘Centronuclear myopathy in Southern Africa’. “This forms part of my PhD and sharing our novel findings with the international community was an invaluable experience. For the past couple of months, I have been working on various projects with colleagues from different institutions globally, namely a Cochrane Review for Neuromuscular Cochrane, as well as other manuscripts. I had met four of these colleagues in person for the first time at WMS in Charleston, after only ever meeting them online!”

Kireshnee presented a poster and short oral presentation on ‘The genetic profile of inherited myopathies in a South African cohort’. “This topic also forms the basis of my PhD, and all the work that was done through my fellowship with the ICGNMD. I was grateful to receive a WMS Elsevier Membership Award for my poster presentation and am very appreciative to have a subscription to WMS.”

Dr. Vishnu presented a poster and short oral presentation on “Clinical and Genetic spectrum of GNE myopathy from India”. He also presented a poster on “Clinical and genetic characterization of Kennedy’s disease in India”. Dr. Vishnu also moderated a short oral presentation session at WMS 2023. He reports: “Being part of the programme committee helped me to interact with various leading experts in the field and to review some amazing abstracts submitted to the congress.”

Sharika, Kireshnee and Vishnu wrote: ‘Overall, we found the WMS conference to be a fantastic experience and certainly one that in many ways serves as a catalyst for our careers in neuromuscular medicine. Thank you very much for the opportunity.”

Sharika Raga, Paediatric Neurologist and PhD fellow, International Centre for Genomic Medicine in Neuromuscular Diseases Study based in Cape Town, South Africa

Kireshnee Naidu, Neurologist, PhD student, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Vishnu VY, Associate Professor (Neurology), Incharge AIIMS-CNMD, AIIMS New Delhi, India