Detail

Legionella Management Symposium

June 13, 2024 - June 14, 2024, 9.00 am - 5.00 pm

Eawag Dübendorf, Forum Chriesbach

We are excited to welcome you to the Legionella Control in Building Plumbing Systems Symposium at Eawag (CH) on June 13-14! The symposium aims to bring together a selected group of established and early-career Legionella researchers to map the current state of knowledge on Legionella in building plumbing systems and to delineate future research needs.
During the two-days, a series of keynote presentations and interactive discussion sessions will be held on four different topics:

  • Environmental epidemiology
  • Risk assessment in relation to buildings
  • Environmental factors on growth
  • Ecology of Legionella


Program

Thursday 13 June:

08:00 Welcome and coffee
08:45 Symposium opening


Session 1: Environmental epidemiology

Chair: Daniel Mäusezahl

09:00 Investigating the root causes of rising legionellosis incidence in New York State and beyond (Ursula Lauper)
09:30 Finding the environmental sources for L. pneumophila, should we broaden our horizon? (Paul van der Wielen)
10:00 Sampling of potable water and detection of Legionella from private homes (Melina Bigler)
10:30 Workshop session 1 (parallel):
  • When are environmental source investigations useful and constructive? (Daniel Mäusezahl & Melina Bigler)
  • What are the important environmental sources for Legionella growth and infection? (Frederik Hammes & Antonia Eichelberg)
  • What are we actually measuring with culture and qPCR for Legionella spp. in water supplies, and what really matters? (Tim Julian & Alessio Cavallaro)
12:00 Lunch


Session 2: Risk assessment in relation to buildings

Chair: Tim Julian

13:30 Quantitative microbial risk assessment in broad context (Charles Haas)
14:00 Quantitative microbial risk assessment of Legionella pneumophila relating shower monitoring results to infection risk (Lizhan Tang)
14:30  Legionella risks, trade-offs, and decisions: where do we go from here? (Kerry Hamilton)
15:00 Workshop session 2 (parallel):
  • How can we best leverage sequencing technologies for ecological and diagnostic information? (Marco Gabrielli, Sébastien Faucher & Laura Gomez Valero)
  • (How) Is it possible to manage Legionella without chemical disinfection? (William Rhoads & Stefan Kötzsch)
  • What are the environmental and behavioural drivers of seasonality of Legionnaires’ disease (LD) cases? (Frederik Hammes & Ursula Lauper)
17:00 Poster session
18:30 Joint dinner


Friday 14 June                 

Session 3: Environmental factors on growth

Chair: Hannah Greenwald Healy

09:00 Water and energy conservation in building water systems without increasing the risk of Legionella (Michele Prevost)
09:30 Environmental factors driving initial colonisation of Legionella in biofilms (Céline Margot)
10:00 Stagnation isn’t going away: are we stuck with Legionella? (Michael Waak)
10:30 Workshop session 3 (parallel):
  • (Why) is stagnation so problematic for Legionella? (Michael Waak & Hannah Greenwald Healy)
  • How is risk assessment influenced by sampling frequency, sampling/Legionella distribution and threshold concentrations? (Émile Sylvestre, Charles Haas & Kerry Hamilon)
  • What are the main challenges when matching human cases and environmental samples?
    (Melina Bigler & Daniel Mäusezahl)


Session 4: Legionella ecology

Chair: Marco Gabrielli

13:30 Amoebae and their potential role in Legionella growth in water systems (Yann Héchard)
14:00 What microbial interactions can tell us: ecological insights and new potential mitigation strategies against Legionella in engineered aquatic systems (Alessio Cavallaro)
14:30 Microbial community dynamics in cooling towers (Sébastien Faucher)
15:00 Workshop session 4:
  • Should regulatory monitoring focus on Legionella spp. or L. pneumophila?
    (Frederik Hammes, Marco Gabrielli & Paul van der Wielen)
16:30 Wrap-up (Frederik Hammes)


Organizing committee:
Frederik Hammes, Antonia Eichelberg, Marco Gabrielli, Tim Julian and Daniel Mäusezahl

Sponsors:
The LeCo project, Eawag discretionary funding, SNF

For any question, please contact: Antonia Eichelberg (antonia.eichelberg@eawag.ch)