Dear Colleagues,

By mid- to late-March, MSB 2020 was all but finalized: pre-conference planning, delegate registrations, and the program were all in place. Our meeting was ready to take off, when the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic hit the entire world, leading to closed borders, severe travel restrictions, lost lives and much angst. The only option was to postpone the conference and hope that the situation would improve sufficiently to allow for us to meet in St. Malo in September.

We are now almost in July 2020. It is, unfortunately, still very uncertain how the travel situation as well as the rules for assemblies of larger crowds will develop over the next few months in France. A second wave and new government regulations could also occur and many companies as well as public workplaces have already extended travel restrictions and even travel bans for the entirety of 2020. 

Many scientific events in 2020 have been completely cancelled because of the pandemic, but MSB 2020 is committed to providing one of the very few scientific “gatherings” for our community during this year. To safeguard the health of all participants, and in agreement with the SMSB Board, we have decided to translate the original MSB 2020 program to a 100% virtual format, with the support of Imavox, a world leader in the field of virtual events with over 20 years of experience.

The organizers are thus able to present a complete, attractive, and dynamic program for the virtual conference, with 80 oral presentations (including plenaries, award lectures and keynote presentations) as well as more than 100 posters.  The benchmarks for scope and quality of our MSB meeting will be met in this new-to-us format, and we all will have an opportunity for information and social exchange that will be restorative.

We realize that virtual meetings cannot offer all the aspects of an in-person meeting, but we have gone to great lengths to prepare a stimulating environment for this virtual meeting. Innovative solutions will be proposed, such as poster presentations in a video format. This will require additional effort and resources, which we are prepared to commit.  We ask that you, our loyal community, honor this commitment by resolving to attend MSB 2020 online.  It will be well worth your time!

We will be back to you shortly with more details on this very special, community-building, virtual edition of MSB.