Sunshine Coast, Australia | 26-28 March 2025

The 2025 annual Congress of the ANN was attended by 156 registrants from a diverse background including: paediatric and adult neurologists, geneticists and genetic counsellors, other medical specialists, allied health professionals, diagnosticians and medical researchers all working towards better understanding, treatment and care for patients and families living with neuromuscular diseases.

The theme for the 2025 Congress was Enhancing Care: Prioritising patients in neuromuscular management and research. Prof Nicol Voermans, from the Radboud University in the Netherlands, was an excellent guest speaker for this Congress and theme. She gave two wonderful presentations, one on FSHD genetics, care and management and another on congenital myopathies in adults. Prof Voermans’ holistic approach to patient care fitted the theme beautifully and meant that her presentations were of interest to the broad audience ANN audience.

The Congress comprised two scientific days and one patient-focused day on the Friday. You can view the full programme here.

The WMS early career session was held on the Wednesday morning and included nine oral presentations, with presenters from Auckland, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. The prize for best oral presentation went to Dr Cara Timpani, for her presentation titled “The gut microbiota as a novel therapeutic for neuromuscular disorders”. The best poster prize went to Katy de Valle for her poster titled: “Classification, clinical care, outcome measures and biomarkers in childhood-onset FSHD: the 279th ENMC workshop update.”

We thank the World Muscle Society for their ongoing support of the ANN Congress and look forward to their support of a joint meeting of the ANN and the 24th Annual Meeting of the Asian Oceanian Myology Centre (AOMC) in Perth in June 2026.

As a demonstration of our commitment to developing the field of neuromuscular disorders through clinical research and patient care, the WMS is seeking project proposals for funding and broader support. We want to break down the barriers to access for our community and ensure that scientists around the world can network, learn from one another, share science and publish their work. The project proposals process is available to all WMS members. For more information and to apply for funding, please visit the project proposals page of the WMS website.