Y-ECCO Members’ Address

Indeed, over the past year the Y-ECCO Family has continued to grow, in terms of not only the overall number of Y-ECCO Members but also the size of our Y-ECCO Committee. We are thrilled to have been able to expand the committee membership to six and welcome two new colleagues, Virginia Solitano and Maria Estevinho, onto the committee. If you are interested in joining us next year, please do apply as a new seat will become available in the upcoming call! As a Y-ECCO Community, we encourage not only gastroenterologists but also surgeons, paediatricians and pathologists to join us. Please all feel welcome!

Y-ECCO is working really hard to support young clinicians and scientists in their efforts to contribute to the broader ECCO-endorsed REACH strategy. At our recent 10^th Y-ECCO Science Workshop, which attracted more than 100 attendees, we learned from other inflammatory diseases, hepatology and translational science thanks to presentations by our excellent keynote speakers, Dirk Elewaut, Johannes Hov and Azucena Salas. Many Y-ECCO Members also submitted excellent abstracts, of whom only a few could be given the opportunity to present their work during the workshop. You can read a full report in this ECCO News, nicely summarized by Virginia Solitano and Gabriele Dragoni. If your work was not selected this year, we do encourage you to submit your follow-up work for ECCO 2025, where there will once again be an opportunity to win one of the Y-ECCO Best Abstract Awards. Importantly, the Y-ECCO Basic Science Workshop has been renamed as the Y-ECCO Science Workshop as we want to be as inclusive as possible, welcoming abstracts in basic, translational and clinical science!  Stay tuned for the programme in 2025 and watch for the open call for abstracts at the ECCO 2025 Congress.

Within the Y-ECCO Community, we really would like to foster interaction at a global level – not only among young gastroenterologists but across disciplines, including basic and translational science. To facilitate interaction, we welcome you all to participate in the yearly networking event during Hearts and Minds at the ECCO Congress. In the meantime, please download the ECCO IBD App, open the ECCO Chat and interact with your Y-ECCO peers around the world! In the app, you will find more and more ECCO Podcasts (educational podcasts, the IBD Communication Toolbox and the ECCO News Podcast) which you can listen to during an energising run or while travelling. Stay tuned, because many more podcasts will follow soon. Furthermore, Y-ECCO is online and can be found on X (@Y_ECCO_IBD), where you can stay up to date with recent ECCO Calls, publications and new Y-ECCO Activities!

Do you want to be more engaged with ECCO? Be our guest! We encourage young researchers to provide us with a nice literature review for an upcoming issue of ECCO News: please do reach out to our responsible Y-ECCO Committee Member, Nuru Noor, if you are interested. And finally, we welcome you all to act as peer reviewers for manuscripts submitted to JCC, as well as for abstracts, fellowships or grant applications submitted to ECCO. Becoming a JCC/ECCO peer reviewer is an excellent opportunity to learn, grow as a researcher and stay up to date with the latest advances in our field. Convinced? Read more and sign up through the ECCO Website today!

While you are reading the Y-ECCO Interview Corner led by Robin Dart and Maria Estevinho, we are already planning the upcoming Y-ECCO Activities. Stay tuned for more details on the upcoming Science Workshop and Mentorship Forum in 2025!

Let’s REACH together!

Bram Verstockt