News
Happy Summertime everyone! We hope you can take some time to relax and recharge. Here are our July updates.
Talks
From the 30th of June to 3rd of July, Lisa Zangarini made the team proud with her active participation at the 2026 edition of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) Europe Conference, in Paris. During the conference she presented her systematic review on smartwatches in general practice and co-facilitated a workshop on decolonizing medicine, developed by the Global Health Special Interest Group of the European Young Family Doctors’ Movement (EYFDM), which she also chairs. Another highlight was her participation in a debate session entitled “What is at the heart of general practice: compassion or clinical excellence?”. Lisa convincingly fought for the side of compassion and a fascinating reflective conversation was enjoyed by all attendees. Congratulations on your successful presentations!
On the 15th of July Marie Haubrich presented key findings from her master’s thesis as part of ACADI’s Four Seasons Lecture Series, in which the team shares their ongoing work to anyone interested within and outside the LIH. Marie’s talk, “Cancer burden among older adults in Europe: Analysis of epidemiological patterns & screening programs”, took listeners through the cancer incidence and mortality across five screenable cancer types, aiming to describe the cancer burden among older adults in Europe and compare populations that remain eligible for screening with those who have surpassed the upper age limits of the EU Council’s screening recommendations. Congratulations on all your hard work, Marie!
Public Features
Dr Sophie Pilleron has been featured in the International Society for Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) newsletter! This feature highlights Dr Pilleron’s research activities, her role as National Representative for Luxembourg, as well as the exciting developments including bringing the SIOG 2027 conference to Luxembourg. You can read the piece here: National Representative spotlight – July 2026 – SIOG
Dr India Pinker was featured on the latest episode of the Lisa Burke Show, a podcast linked to RTL Today. Dr Pinker discussed the role of health communication and empathy in care, featured alongside physiotherapist Sarah Elmquist. If you are looking for some interesting afternoon listening, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Alternatively, you can read the article and watch the episode here: https://today.rtl.lu/radio/news/pelvic-floor-health-postpartum-care-and-empathy-in-medicine-1823494844.
RESCOM Lecture Series
July saw the end of our RESCOM lecture series on Causal Inference for Real-World Data. It was a fascinating and enlightening series, featuring the foremost experts in Causal Inference. We would like to thank every one of our fantastic expert speakers and to all of you who joined us for a lecture. You brought the series to life!
Of course, the series would not be possible without the support of the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) or our partnerships with the University of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-economic Research.
If you missed a lecture or would like to revisit a particularly inspiring session, you can find the recordings on our webpage here: 🇬🇧 Lecture series – Causal inference methods for real-world data 2025/2026 » Luxembourg Institute of Health
Leadership
Dr Pauline Duquenne elected as an Early Career Researcher (ECR) representative for LIH! She will be representing the LIH departments of our Edison building in Strassen. As part of her role, she will advocate for the collective interests, perspectives and needs of ECRs within LIH. In doing so, she will contribute to important conversations with LIH management and governance bodies to ensure that policies, practices and the wider LIH culture are inclusive of ECRs. Congratulations Pauline!
Reflections
Summer is an opportunity to slow down and reflect on the progress we have made during the first half of the year. We are proud to celebrate several highlights featured in previous newsletters, including a successful year of journal clubs led by Dr Clémence Bafei and the shortlisting of Dr India Pinker’s grant application to the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). At the same time, research, like life, has its disappointments. Our challenges have included project delays and funding applications that were ultimately unsuccessful, such as the UICC grant and AFR PhD proposal. While disappointing, they provide valuable opportunities to learn, refine our approach, and build on our strengths. With valuable lessons learned and several exciting projects underway, we look forward to the opportunities ahead in the coming months.
The summer also brought the end of two internships in the team: those of Manal El Hani and Maya Shamsi Basha. They both brought dedication and hard work to the team for their stays with us and we look forward to seeing where they go next! All the best to you both!
Until next time, keep well.
ACADI Team.