Welcome letter
Dear Colleagues,
the participants of the 9th International Weigl Conference,
I have a great pleasure to welcome you at mentioned event organized by joint efforts of Polish and Ukrainian microbiologists and their foreign partners. Current Weigl conference for the first time will be held in Subcarpathian region of Poland. Previous Weigl conferences have took place twice in Lviv, Ukraine (2003, 2017) – the city where Rudolf Weigl worked and made his major discoveries and inventions, Warsaw, Poland (2007), Odessa, Ukraine (2009); Wroclaw, Poland (2011); Chernivtsi, Ukraine (2013), Gdansk, Poland (2015); Lodz, Poland (2019). It was decided that the next Weigl conference will be organized in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, however, first COVID-19 pandemics and later Russian aggression against Ukraine hampered these plans. We with my Co-Chair Prof. Grzegorz Węgrzyn after support of the Rector of the University of Rzeszow Prof. Sylwester Czopek decided to organize the 9th International Weigl conference in Rzeszow. Rzeszow is located close to Ukrainian border which makes possible easy access of Ukrainian participants to the venue of the meeting.
Rudolf Stefan Weigl (1883 – 1957) worked in the fields of microbiology, parasitology, immunology and biotechnology. He is most known after his studies of epidemic typhus caused by Rickettsia prowazekii. He was the first who proposed to get vaccines after experimental infection of laboratory animal (in the case of epidemic typhus this animal is louse) as before R. Weigl, vaccines were obtained after treatment of infection agents isolated from sick people. R. Weigl also was the first person who developed and implemented into medical practice commercial vaccine against epidemic typhus. His contributions in microbiology and medicine were really profound and remarkable. His international reputation could be illustrated by the fact that R. Weigl was nominated for Nobel prize in the field of physiology and medicine. Prof. R. Weigl was also posthumously awarded with the medal “Righteous among the Nations of the World” of the state of Israel.
As was mentioned, Prof. R. Weigl, the person of Austrian ancestry, did his research in interwar years in the former Polish city of Lviv (Lwów) which now is part of Ukraine. He possessed many students both of Polish and Ukrainian nationality, so in commemoration of his achievements for Poland and Ukraine, microbiologists of both countries decided to organize, on regular basis, bilateral conferences which gradually became the really international events. In Rzeszow, we offer interesting scientific program which includes also new fields like cell and molecular biology and others. Conference also will include interesting social program, e.g. visiting famous palace in Lańcut close to Rzeszow and other events.
I cordially invite you to attend the 9th International Weigl Conference and wish you successful meeting, establishing new contacts and starting new collaborations and also great memories on conference and Rzeszow!
Andriy Sybirnyy,
the Chair of the Organizing Committee
