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Praglia Abbey is 12 km from Padua and 2 km from Abano Terme, a charming old hot springs spa town.
The Abbey is run by Benedictine monks who have repaired ancient books and manuscripts for hundreds of years. Much of the Abbey has been converted to a modern conference center. |
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They raise most of their own food. For lunch before the meeting the staff were served homemade pasta which they proudly told us was made with butter from their farm and all natural ingredients. We were also served roast rabbit, boiled greens, and shredded cabbage. |
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Dr. Giuseppe Opocher (left), a geneticist from the University of Padua, is the meeting chair. Pier Antonio, our "slide man" and general audio-visual expert, is an endocrinologist at UniPd. |
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Kathy (left) is a medical student at the University, and Claudia is a student in cultural tourism. Father Norberto, the head of the conference center, was celebrating his saint's day, St. Norbert's Day, June 6. In Italy one's Saint's Day take precedence over one's birthday. On the far right is Lella Guerra, chairman of Aliaza VHL, our Italian affiliate. |
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Karina Villar (center), Susi, and Montse from our Affiliate in Spain set up their beautiful poster presentation. |
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And now the conference begins! |
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Dr. Opocher (behind the head) and Joyce Graff (left) opened the congress. Bill Kaelin (center) gave the opening talk for the session on "New Advancements in VHL Proteomics". The first speaker in this series of talks was Dr. Tien Tsu (right) from South Carolina. |
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We have attendees from six continents! These three came from Japan: left to right, Drs. Shuin, Yao, and Baba. |
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And Dr.Kecem came from Tunisia! She is following a VHL family in Tunisia, and will be collaborating with Dr. Richard and the French Study Group. |
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Joke Jansen came from the Netherlands with Dr. Naim Berisha and his wife Hetty. |
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Michael from Sweden, Vibeke from Denmark, with Dr.William
Kaelin of Boston and Dr. Böhling from Denmark. |
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Dr. José Claudio Rocha from Brazil and Dr. Stéphane
Richard from France. |
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Richard H. with Drs. Sunde and Rosenberg from Denmark.
We spent 5 hours together and shared a buffet supper before the shuttle buses took everyone back to their hotels. |
