National Kidney Conference, Bergen, Norway

I just attended the "National Kidney Conference" in Bergen. It was held in memory of Bjarne Iversen, my old mentor. Since the common denominator was that the presenters were old collaborators, the talks were very varied, or, you might say, the conference was a bit unfocused. Many did include a short presentation of how they had collaborated with Bjarne and tried to present data that in some way was connected to this, but equally many held their presentations as they would have at any other conference.

The highlights were Bill Arendshorst who talked about renal vascular function and Christos Chatziantoniou who talked about new markers and potential therapeutic targets in renal fibrosis. In addition Hans-Peter Marti presented data on markers of renal fibrosis on the genetic level. Personally, I had hoped for a wider attendance but I think the organizers wanted a more intimate meeting.

As with any meeting the important part was getting to meet some other experts in my field and discuss what we are and should be doing, and of course when and where we should meet next time to have a been and a chat. A bonus with invited lectures is that you get to aggregate your data and try to present them in a wider context. All-in-all a good meeting, although with a sad undertone as we remembered our mentor and friend who could not attend what was originally planned by him as a retirement seminar.