No less than 15 different nationalities were represented among the 25 students enrolled this year, of whom the great majority were neurologists or neuropaediatricians. It was with interest that we welcomed several physicians and physiotherapists from the world of physiotherapy, proof that neuromuscular diseases concern them also, in France as well as abroad. The 2004 vintage had a definite “latino” flavour, with a large percentage of students from Spain, the Greater Antilles and South America. If this continues, we’ll have to think seriously about running a “Escuela de Verano de Miologia” entirely in the language of Cervantès! The other tendency was the continuing of our privileged links with two geographically close countries, Iran and India. Our Indian students (three in 2004) brought a touch of vestimentary colour and originality to the School, even if we promise to do better next year in terms of our staff restaurant and vegetarian meals.
During this seminar 36 lecturers (among whom, 5 from abroad) gave about 50 hours of courses, of which 15 were in the form of practical workshops. The rich intellectual course content and the participants’ enthusiasm together made this 7th Summer School a great success.
This year we would particularly like to mention the two courses by Dr Alberto Rosa, an Argentine genetics physician and biochemist working at Spokane University in WashingtonState (USA). The first concerned facioscapulohumeral (FSHD) myopathy and the other some very original work into a rare form of Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD 1A). Alberto Rosa is an ex-student of the Summer School (Year 1998). He has obviously come a long way, and we can be proud of him.
One of the messages repeated to the students is to encourage them to develop their powers of clinical observation and to work in collaboration with other teams – preferably but not exclusively European – to carry out molecular biology studies. Thus, back in their own countries, many ex-students get in touch with us after several months to keep us up to date about the detection of new cases of sometimes extremely rare myopathies or neuropathies. From this point of view, the 2004 vintage has proved to be just as abundant in studies and original observations as its predecessors
