Title: Poster presentation in the 59th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition.

The 59th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition was held in the Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, GA, USA. The conference took place on December 9, 2017 – December 12, 2017.
The ASH Annual Meeting is considered as the premier event in malignant and non-malignant hematology. This was my second participation in an ASH Annual Meeting. It was actually an overwhelming event, with more than 25000 participants. It provided huge opportunities, both for scientific dissemination (poster sessions) and research networking. Within the framework of CLLassify, a poster was presented with title “Different Time-Dependent Risk for Disease Evolution in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia with Distinct IGHV Gene Somatic Hypermutation Status”, related to the second Work Package of CLLassify. The poster sessions exhibited, as usual, massive attendance from researchers from all over the world. I would like to thank you all for your interest in our research and for the fruitful discussions.

The Programme included a great variety of scientific subjects and the opportunity was there for everyone to enlighten his/her scientific views and update his/her knowledge. Overall, this was as an amazing experience to broaden my horizons in many aspects and I hope to have the opportunity to participate in the next ASH Annual Meeting in San Diego in December, 2018. Hope to see you there!

 Title: Oral presentation in the 28th Annual meeting of the Hellenic Society of Haematology​.
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The 28th Annual meeting of the Hellenic Society of Haematology was organized this year in Athens, Greece. The venue was the Megaro mousikis athens concert hall. The program of the conference is given here. This was my first participation in this meeting. Although an oral presentation regarding statistics in a clinical audience is almost a dangerous venture, it went pretty well! 

Title: Participation in the European Researchers' Night (NIGHT).
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The 2017 European Researchers' Night in Thessaloniki was organized by CERTH in Megaro Mousikis Thessalonikis. The organizers reserved a special spot for the MSCA fellows to enable them to promote their research and MSCA in general. This was a great experience since we had the opportunity to directly interact with the general public. It was really intriguing to explain research concepts without jargon, but at the same time this was a refreshing experience. The participation of the general public was overwhelming and we really enjoyed it. Thank you very much for the invitation, it was a pleasure. Hope to see you there again next year!

Title: Invited talk in the 11th Summer School in Mathematics.
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The 11th Summer School in Mathematics is organized each year in Greece by the hellenic mathematics society. It brings together high school students independently of age who are interested in mathematics and, in addition have excelled in mathematics during the last year. It constitutes an excellent opportunity and example for outreach activities aiming the younger generation which will to the new generation of scientists.  Consequently, this was a great opportunity to speak not only about CLLassify, but for the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions in general. Within this framework, an oral presentation was given with title “Science and Mathematics”. The venue was the Olympian Bay Hotel at Leptokaria/Pieria, Greece and the presentation took place on July 23, 2017.
The talk was about the MSCA, Marie Sklodowska Curie in person and her biography, a general description regarding CLLassify and its objectives, a short discussion about the application of statistics in vital clinical problems with huge impact in the everyday lives of European citizens at large and a reference at the European’s Researcher’s Night. A questionaire was distributed to all students befor the start and after the end of the talk with questions aiming to evaluate the awareness regarding science, MSC, statistics in medicine, etc. To my surprise, the students systematically interacted with me throughout the talk and the “Q&A” session after the end of the talk lasted for almost an hour. This shows in a clear manner the -most of the times- underrated interest of the younger generation for such events and highlights the fact that informative events regarding science and research can strongly impact and motivate high school students, or even prepare them for a future career.

Title: Invited talk during the “info day” for the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions.
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This was a very interesting scientific event, organised by The Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas (CERTH) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). The venue was Amphitheatre I of AUTH, Research Committee Building and the event took place on May 30, 2017.
The program included a talk about the “Presentation of “MSCA Individual Fellowships” 2017 Call“, a talk regarding “Proposal Preparation and Writing” and my talk regarding my experience so far as an MSC fellow. It was thrilling to return in such an event as a speaker, since it was an event like this 5 years ago that introduced me to the world of MSCA. I strongly believe that events like this are very encouraging for young researchers and that they should definitely be organized at a regular basis to motivate more researchers to embrace MSC actions.
I would like to thank very much the organizers for inviting me.

Title: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia and Multiple myeloma.

This was a very interesting scientific event, organised by the Institute of Applied Biosciences/The Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas (INAB/CERTH) and Janssen at Thessaloniki, Greece. The venue was Hotel Nikopolis and the event took place on May 27, 2017.
The scientific program was built around recent developments regarding chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma (MM). In addition, there has been an extensive discussion regarding clinical and professional experiences among all the participants. The event ended with a talk regarding Emotional Intelligence in Clinical Communication.

Title: Oral presentation in the 9th EMR-IBS and Italian Region conference.
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The 9th EMR-IBS and Italian Region conference was held in the MET Hotel, Thessaloniki, Greece. The conference took place on May, 8-12, 2017.
This is an international conference which brings together researchers from all over Europe, but especially from the Eastern Mediterranean Region, Italy and Spain, working on different fields of Statistics applied in the general field of life and science, such as but not limited to Longitudinal Data Analysis, Clustering and Classification, Data Mining, Health Insurance, Time Series Analysis, Epidemiological Methods, Diagnostic and Screening Tests, Genomics, Proteomics and Microarray Data, Health Economics and Survival Analysis.
This was my first participation in an EMR-IBS conference and overall, it was a very prolific research experience. Among else, it provided many opportunities, both for scientific dissemination (poster sessions and oral presentations) and research networking. Within the framework of CLLassify, an oral presentation was given with title “Refining prognostication in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients”, related to the first Work Package of CLLassify.
The Program included a variety of scientific subjects and the opportunity was there for everyone to enlighten his/her scientific views and update his/her knowledge. Overall, this was as a great experience.

Title: Oral presentation in the 9th International Mathematical Week.
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The 9th International Mathematical Week is organized each year in Greece. It brings together mathematicians at every career level as well as students of every level and, even more, people in general who are interested in mathematics and their developments. It is an excellent opportunity for outreach activities.  Consequently, this was an excellent opportunity for CLLassify to communicate the results of WP1 to the general public. Within this framework, an oral presentation was given with title “Tailored approaches for refined prognostication in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients“. The venue was Helexpo at Thessaloniki, Greece and the presentation took place on March 15, 2017.
The general public had the opportunity to be informed regarding the latest research developments of CLLassify. This actually turned out to be a real opportunity to inform mathematicians and the general public regarding the application of statistics in vital clinical problems with huge impact in the everyday lives of European citizens at large.

Title: Oral presentation in the INAB/CERTH.
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The Institute of Applied Biosciences (INAB)/CERTH organizes each year a series of seminars to enhance the opportunity for osmosis between the researchers and to provide the general public with the opportunity to be informed regarding the latest research developments. This was an excellent opportunity for CLLassify regarding both the dissemination of the WP1 results and (even more) the outreach to the general public. Within this framework, an oral presentation was given with title “Tailored approaches for refined prognostication in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients“.
The venue was INAB at Thessaloniki, Greece and the event took place on January 27, 2017. This proved to be a great opportunity for fruitful discussions.

Title: Poster presentation in the 58th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition.
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The 58th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition was held in the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA, USA. The conference took place on December 3, 2016 – December 6, 2016.
The ASH Annual Meeting is considered as the premier event in malignant and non-malignant hematology. Personally, it was my first participation in an ASH Annual Meeting, and even more to such an impressive scientific gathering. It was actually an overwhelming event, with more than 25000 participants. It provided huge opportunities, both for scientific dissemination (poster sessions) and research networking. Within the framework of CLLassify, a poster was presented with title “Tailored Approaches for Refined Prognostication in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients with Mutated Versus Unmutated Immunoglobulin Receptors”, related to the first Work Package of CLLassify. The poster was based on an abstract that was selected for the ASH Abstract Achievement Award, which is awarded to high-scoring annual meeting abstracts. The poster sessions exhibited massive attendance from researchers from all over the world, and fortunately many interesting discussions came up, regarding our research results.