by Cara Brook
From July 9-11, 2025, the Brook lab hosted the Fourth International Symposium on the Infectious Diseases of Bats (BatID 2025) at the University of Chicago.
Over 140 people attended, representing 9 countries and 24 states. Plenary Speakers Dr. Liliana Davalos from Stony Brook University, Dr. Benhur Lee from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dr. Daniel Streicker from the University of Glasgow, Dr. Simon Anthony from UC Davis, and Dr. Tigga Kingston from Texas Tech University led off five fascinating sessions focused, respectively, on ‘Bat immunology and within-host dynamics’, ‘Bat pathogen evolution’, ‘Bat pathogen persistence & transmission dynamics’, ‘Bat pathogen discovery’, and ‘Reconciling bat infectious diseases and conservation’.
I owe a huge thanks to co-organizers, Dr. Arinjay Banerjee from VIDO, University of Saskatchewan; Dr. Hannah Frank from Tulane University; Dr. Stephanie Seifert from Washington State University; and Dr. Daniel Becker from the University of Oklahoma.
With support from the NSF IOS Division, we were able to fund 17 students to attend with travel awards from all over the world. Please see the meeting webpage for more information.
We look forward to the next BatID, to be held tentatively in the summer of 2027.
