Message from Bob Buresh, Senior Vice-President of WPSA

Report on the Egg & Meat Quality Symposium – Zadar, Croatia

 I am very pleased to congratulate the organizers and hosts for the recent Egg & Meat Quality Symposium held in the beautiful city of Zadar, Croatia. This event represented the XXth European Symposium on the Quality of Eggs and Egg Products and the XXVIth European Symposium on the Quality of Poultry Meat. The organizers, Working Groups 4 and 5 of the European Federation and the hosts, the Croatian Branch of the WPSA, developed an excellent scientific and social programme for the over 250 attendees representing 38 countries.

The programme featured 6 plenary session speakers that both reviewed the current status of egg and poultry meat quality topics while introducing new and innovative concepts to the audience. These keynote topics included the analysis of product loss during poultry processing, a review of factors affecting egg yolk colour, a journey through the quality of eggs and egg products, the authentication of the origin and conditions of production, processing and preservation of poultry meat products, the use of Artificial Intelligence to boost the productivity and sustainability while optimizing the egg value chain, and concluded with a review of intestinal microbiota as an important modulator of meat quality.

These 6 plenary sessions were supplemented with 48 short communications and 55 poster presentations introducing cutting edge research focused on the quality of poultry meat, eggs and egg products.

The programme and the venue provided the opportunity for attendees to benefit from the scientific sessions while encouraging and fostering networking opportunities. The welcome reception held at the Rector’s Palace (in Old Town Zadar) and the closing dinner gala event, held aboard the event ship “Nada” were memorable highlights of the social programme.

I especially want to thank the event chairpersons, Prof. Emerita Estella Prukner-Radovcic, Prof. Dr. Helga Medic, and Prof. Dr. Nives Marusic Radovcic for hosting and developing such an excellent event that was both scientifically and professionally rewarding and personally enjoyable. I am sure all attendees will fondly remember their time at the symposium and in Zadar.

WPSA announces three successful candidates of the WPSA PhD Student Support Programme

• M.N. Khatun, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh; Surveillance of pathogens from environmental samples of migratory and wild birds in selected areas in Bangladesh
• K. Runcharoon, University of Georgia, USA; Characterizing Avian pathogenic _E. coli _(APEC) pathogenicity using serotyping, genotyping, _in vitro _and animal challenge models
• B. Kasireddy, University of Georgia, USA: Evaluation of the effects of wheat bran and soyhull alone or in combination with stimbiotic, compared to supplementation of stimbiotic alone on growth performance and gut health in broiler chickens

If you are a WPSA student member and want to make use of this new programme, be quick and apply (https://wpsa.com/phd-student-research-support-programme/).

We can support two more students in 2025.

Recognition of WPSA LinkedIn Achievement

The WPSA Board has focused on adopting LinkedIn as our primary social media platform for the association and is pleased to announce that we have surpassed the 1300 followers mark. We encourage all members to “Follow” the World’s Poultry Science Association on LinkedIn and utilize this resource to communicate branch activities, interact with other WPSA members and share our association news. I would also like to thank our WPSA Staff members, Dorien Velner and Irina Tutert for their significant efforts in this achievement.