Meet the Jadassohn lecture speaker

The ESCD Congress 2022 proudly presents the first keynote speaker: Professor Wolfgang Uter.

He will be the keynote speaker for the prestigious Jadassohn lecture. The Jadassohn keynote lecture will take place on the first day of the ESCD Congress 2022: Wednesday June 8th 2022, 13:20 CEST.

Professor Wolfgang Uter

Early on during my residency in dermatology at the university of Göttingen dermatology department, that is, in the late 1980ies, I became interested in exogenous dermatoses, and contact allergy in particular. Consequently, I joined the initial staff setting up the “Information Network of Departments of Dermatology” (IVDK) and my path to contact allergy epidemiological surveillance was set! This continued during my time in Osnabrück, where the focus was (and still is) on occupational dermatology, and it certainly continued in my research profile as professor for epidemiology at the university of Erlangen/Nürnberg at Erlangen (since 2001).

Can you give us a teaser for the Jadassohn lecture?

My main experience as well as motivation in research has been teaming with colleagues, including those with other scientific background. Most prominently, in my case, statistics, but also (immuno-)chemistry. Moreover, contact with those working in other areas of the world, mainly concerning Europe, in my case, I always felt extremely rewarding. In the Jadassohn lecture I will try to take this experience up and to present examples – “success stories” perhaps – which could motivate the younger generations of researchers to engage in teamwork (which they may be inclined to do anyway, and which has become easier with nowadays technical possibilities), and, hopefully, stay with our very interesting sub-specialty.

Why do you attend the ESCD Congress?

I attended all ESCD congresses during the past > 20 years, and all were interesting, sociable, and overall rewarding. Being convener of one ESCD working party it was of course always nice to see many colleagues of the ESSCA working group, for discussions and decisions on the group’s activities. Not to mention the many informal contacts in-between sessions – this is what I meant with “sociable”. Alas, for the first time in their history, the ESCD had to skip a congress, scheduled June 2020 in lovely Amsterdam – for well-known reasons. Thus, the upcoming congress in June 2022 will be an event much looked forward to, as a perspective of “back to (a perhaps partly ‘new’) normal” is much missed.

Any other thoughts to share?

Although certainly very much looking forward to the proper ESCD congress, as written, I think that  “Corona” has taught us that in terms of outreach or accessibility, and also from an ecological perspective, digital formats are a valid option for many purposes. Sure not as a replacement of all physical meetings, but as a complementary, focused and efficient means to connect for networking. Hopefully we will be able to develop a balance between the two formats offering the best of the two worlds.