Meeting Reports

Regulatory T cell therapies have shown promise for treating autoimmune diseases and aiding transplantation. We summarize a recent NIAID/HESI-sponsored workshop that addressed key issues in non-clinical and clinical development vital to advancing this immune tolerance paradigm.

To address the increasing importance of studying immunology in humans, rather than a reliance on model systems, back-to-back symposia highlighting advances in human immunology were held in Osaka and Kyoto in Japan.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) held a three-day workshop to assess the landscape of long COVID clinical studies and develop plans for the RECOVER-TLC clinical trials program.

In December 2024, the NIH Office of Autoimmune Disease Research in the Office of Research on Women’s Health (OADR-ORWH) hosted a virtual meeting in the ScienceTALKS series entitled ‘The Cancer Autoimmune Connection: Decoding the Paradox’.

On 23–26 September 2024, the second ImmunOctoberfest conference took place in Raitenhaslach, Germany, and brought together scientists from all over the world to catch up on recent advances in ‘Bridging Innovation and Translation in T cell Immunotherapy’.

On 11–12 September 2024, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) convened experts to discuss associations between microorganisms and the development of autoimmune diseases.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hosted a symposium on ‘AI and Immunology: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities’. The event considered how artificial intelligence (AI) can advance research on the multi-scale, adaptive immune system to improve human health, covering basic research and clinical use cases, data and AI model fundamentals.

The EMBO workshop ‘Pathogen Immunity and Signaling’, held in San Servolo, Italy, from 8 to 12 April 2024, aimed to discuss cutting-edge advances in the understanding of antimicrobial defense mechanisms.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hosted a two-day virtual workshop on leveraging microbial exposure to improve mouse models of human immune status and disease. The workshop’s objective was to evaluate the current state of knowledge in the field and to identify gaps, challenges and future directions.

The first conference on ‘Infection and Immunity’ was organized by the Institute for Basic Science and Korean Association of Immunologists and held in Daejeon, South Korea, from 12 to 14 July 2023. The conference focused on the biology of CD8⁺ T cells in the context of viral disease and cancer.

On 20–23 June 2023, the 10th International γδ T cell conference was held in Lisbon, Portugal, bringing together basic, translational and clinical researchers studying γδ T cells in health and disease.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases hosted a two-day virtual workshop on skin microbial communities and their interactions with the host immune system in health and disease. The aim of the workshop was to evaluate the current state of knowledge in the field and identify gaps, challenges, and future directions.

Starting on 19 September 2022, the very first ImmunOctoberfest conference took place in Raitenhaslach, Germany, bringing together scientists from all over the world to discuss ‘bridging innovation and translation in T cell immunotherapy’.

On 15–16 June 2022, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases hosted a virtual workshop on the topic of T cell technologies to discuss assays, novel technology development, bench and clinical application of those technologies, and challenges and innovations in the field.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) convened a virtual workshop in July 2022 to address the research landscape and identify gaps and opportunities in the understanding of durable vaccine protection.

On 3–8 June 2022, the First International Aegean Conference on Mesenchymal Cells in Health & Disease took place in Chania, Crete, and brought together clinicians and scientists who work on mesenchymal or stromal cell biology across different fields including immunity, inflammation and cancer.

On 15–16 November 2021, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) hosted a virtual workshop on DEAD/DEAH-box RNA helicases in health and disease. The goal of the workshop was to review current advances, and identify knowledge gaps and future research to improve our understanding of the function of RNA helicases, and leverage these molecules as molecular targets with translational potential.

On 27 ̶ 29 July 2021, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hosted a virtual workshop on the topic of secondary vaccine effects to discuss existing evidence, potential immunological mechanisms and associated public health implications.

As a follow up to a 2010 meeting deliberating on the benefits of studying mouse models of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the virtual conference “Mouse models of lupus 10 years later” convened on 10 December 2020 to address a challenging decade that saw few new therapies approved, despite leaps in knowledge.

In the midst of resurging COVID-19 cases, the second NIH/FDA virtual COVID-19 and Cytokines symposium was held on 1 December 2020, focusing on longitudinal studies of COVID-19 immunity, including long-term consequences, potential associations with autoimmunity and the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).