SPEAKERS

Find out who you can discuss the latest updates and results with on the spot and where they are from…

Main Session

Tumor Immunology

 

…concentrates his research on signaling processes in the immune system, both normal and when deregulated due to disease.

With his research group, he investigates how normal immune cells recognize pathogens and initiate immune defense. The group is also examining how pathologically deregulated signals in blood cells lead to the development of cancer. The goal of their research is to provide a basis for therapeutic manipulation of the immune system.
Jürgen Ruland studied medicine in Giessen and Pittsburgh with a degree in pharmacology. After medical and research work at TUM, Freiburg University, the Ontario Cancer Institute and the AMGEN Research Institute at the University of Toronto, he became head of a junior research group of the German Cancer Aid at TUM in 2003. He completed his postdoctoral studies in medicine in 2005 and served as professor of molecular immunology at TUM from 2010 to 2012. In 2012, he was appointed professor of clinical chemistry at TUM.

He is member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Cancer Aid committee for promoting young medical professionals and scientists. He is the spokesperson for the Collaborative Research Center 1335 “Aberrant Immune Signals in Cancer” and successfully raised his second ERC Advanced Grant in 2019. In 2021 he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation

Meet him in the session “Immune Receptor Signals in T Cell Malignancy

Hörsaal F
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

…is full professor for hematology and oncology at the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI), Austria. He is also the spokesman of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Innsbruck (CCCI) and co-leads the early durg development unit (EDDU) at the MUI campus to foster translation of research into early clinical settings. His research as physician scientist is focused on immune regulation in cancer with a particular focus on lung cancer and myeloproliferative neoplasia. He combines systematic sample and data collection from defined clinical cohorts (eg. early lung cancer) and wet-lab biology (high-throughput sequencing and cutting edge multi-dimensional flow) to identify immunological/inflammatory signatures and targets linked to clinical outcome. Before moving to Innsbruck in 2018, he held a W2 professorship for tumor-immunology at the University Bonn in Germany and was deputy director of the Medical Clinic 3 (Hematology, Oncology, Immune-Oncology and Rheumatology). He has received several research awards, including the Sanofi-Aventis Award, Schönmann Cancer Research Award 2007. He is funded by several agencies including Deutsche Krebshilfe, DFG, FFG and Jose-Carreras Leukämiestiftung.

Meet him in the session “ Single cell deconvolution of the inflammatory cancer microenvironment

Hörsaal F
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Director, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford School of Medicine

Session TBC

Hörsaal F
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Innate Immunity

 

…is a Full Professor for Microbiology and Immunology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and a Senior Group Leader at the German Rheumatism Research Centre, an Institute of the Leibniz Association.

His laboratory studies development and function of the innate immune system, in particular of innate lymphoid cells (ILC). A current focus is to obtain a molecular understanding of how the innate immune system, by integrating environmental signals, contributes to tissue physiology. Recent studies have revealed ever more intriguing relationships between innate immune system components and basic developmental and biologic processes that are likely to reveal unsuspected pathways by which the immune system might be plumbed to improve health and healthspan. These lines of research have suggested new functions of the immune system for processes such as tissue homeostasis, tissue resilience, metabolism, regeneration and growth.
Over the past 20 years my lab has contributed to some key aspects of the developmental origin and function of ILC and to how their function is informed by signals from the environment (microbiota, nutrients) (Sanos, Nat Immunol 2009; Vonarbourg, Immunity 2010; Kiss, Science 2011). Our work on the function of ILC has revealed new paradigms for roles of innate immune system components in protecting epithelial stem cells against environmental assaults (Hernandez, Nat Immunol 2015; Gronke, Nature 2019) and in controlling nutrient absorption (Guendel, Immunity 2020). We have demonstrated that all ILC are derived from a common progenitor, CHILP (Klose, Cell 2014). Our data have further defined a developmental trajectory for ILC and have elucidated some of the underlying transcriptional modules (Vonarbourg, Immunity 2010; Hoyler, Immunity 2012; Klose, Nature 2013). By virtue of their tissue-residency, ILC are involved in processes that are not conventionally linked to the immune system such as tissue repair and growth, differentiation of epithelial cells, morphogenesis and organ homeostasis. The role of ILC as sensors for various infractions to homeostasis and their ever more intriguing roles in regulating metabolism, resilience of tissues, epithelial differentiation, and epithelial integrity are a focus of our current research. We propose that ILC are an important hub in various homeostatic control circuits thereby contributing to successful adaptation to our habitats (Diefenbach, Immunity 2020).
Finally, we have provided several lines of evidence that the microbiota calibrates systemic immunity (Ganal, Immunity 2012). Our data identified tonic and tunable cytokine signals (type I interferons, IFN-I) controlled by the intestinal microbiota that regulate metabolic programs in mononuclear phagocytes that we linked to their ability to prime innate and adaptive immunity (Schaupp, Cell 2020). We hypothesize that in a genetically and microbiota diverse population, the availability of such signals is individually different leading to the calibration of distinct set-points for immune responsiveness which may be linked to the onset of inflammatory diseases.

 

Meet him in the session “Innate Lymphoid Cells

Hörsaal A
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

….studied medicine in Göttingen and Berlin and worked as an intensive care physician at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. Starting in 2000, he received post-doctoral training at Boston University and UMass Medical School, joining the UMass faculty in 2006. In 2010, he returned to Germany and founded the Institute of Innate Immunity at the University of Bonn. He focuses on identifying the upstream innate immune mechanisms leading to inflammation in various pathologies. Eicke has co-founded several biotech companies (IFM Therapeutics, Odyssey Therapeutics, DiosCure Therapeutics, and a ‘Stealth’ biotech) that translate discoveries into novel therapeutics. He has been a highly cited scientist in immunology yearly since 2014 and has received prestigious awards, such as the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize.

 

 

Meet him in the session “Identification of an endogenous TLR4 agonist driving metaflammation

Hörsaal A
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

… is a Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Staff Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston MA. She is internationally recognized for her work in immune and vascular cell-mediated mechanisms of inflammation. A major research interest of her lab is to understand the role of low-affinity FcγRs (receptors for IgG-immune complexes) and related adhesion receptors in regulating immune complex-mediated neutrophil responses and organ damage in IgG-mediated inflammatory diseases. Her scientific contributions have been acknowledged by a Young Investigator award by the Society of Leukocyte Biology (1996), an American Heart Association Established Investigator Grant (2001), the Stewart-Niewiarowski Award for Women in Vascular Biology (2010), and the Distinguished Innovator Award from the Lupus Research Institute (2015). Her talk will describe her group’s recent work showing that engaging FcγRIIIB on neutrophils reprograms them into potent antigen-presenting cells (nAPCs) that activate T cells and anti-tumor immunity.

 

Meet her in the session “Neutrophil regulation of T cell-mediated adaptive immunity”

Hörsaal A
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Transplantation and γδ T cells

…obtained her PhD in Genetics and Microbiology from the University of Vienna. She is working as Associated Professor of Immunology at the Department of Surgery at the Medical University of Vienna.
She has 15 years of experience in the field of organ transplantation and leads her
own research group working on Treg induced transplantation tolerance.
Nina is currently holding chair of the Basic Science Committee of the European Society of Organ Transplantation (ESOT) and is board member of The Austrian Society for Surgical Research.

 

Meet her in the session “Treg therapies for tolerance induction

Hörsaal D
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

… is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology,
Stanford University School of Medicine. She obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and did post-doctoral work in Molecular Biology at the California Institute of Technology. She started her research in immunology on ab T cells with
the analysis of the genomic organization of TCRb and the discovery of the gene encoding TCRa. The question of how gd T cells contribute to host immune defense has been the focus of her research since soon after these cells were discovered. She has made several landmark
discoveries: identifying the TCRd gene, discovering that the TCRd gene locus within the TCRa locus, showing that gd T cells and ab T cells have different antigen recognition requirements in that gd T cells are able to recognize antigens directly and do not require antigen processing, presentation, and that the MHC molecule is not an obligatory component of the gd T cell antigen.In addition, gd TCR antigen recognition is more similar to Ig than to ab TCRs and that common B cell antigens can also be gd T cell antigens. She and her colleagues have also made important observations about the development of the antigen-specific repertoire, effector fate determination, and activation requirements of gd T cells. In the area of human immune responses, her group’s analysis of M. tuberculosis infection in humans showed that what has been termed “TB latency” involves active immune responses and identified factors that may influence infection outcomes.

Meet her in the session “Antigen-expanded CD8+ gamma delta T cells with a NK-like phenotype and function respond in persistent infection

Hörsaal D
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Megan Sykes’ research career, during which she has published >470 papers and book chapters, has focused on hematopoietic cell transplantation, organ allograft tolerance induction, xenotransplantation tolerance and Type 1 diabetes. She has developed novel strategies for achieving graft-versus-tumor effects without GVHD following hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). She developed an approach that was evaluated in clinical trials of non-myeloablativehaploidentical HCT whose safety and efficacy allowed trials of HCT for the induction of organ  allograft tolerance, achieving tolerance in humans for the first time. She has dissected tolerance mechanisms and pioneered minimal conditioning approaches for using HCT to achieve allograft and xenograft tolerance. She developed a method of tracking alloreactive T cells in human  transplant recipients and used it and other techniques to investigate T lymphocyte dynamics in the graft and the periphery of human transplant recipients. Her work on xenogeneic thymic transplantation for tolerance induction led, for the first time, to long-term kidney xenograft survival in non-human primates. She developed novel “humanized mouse” models that allow personalized analysis of human immune disorders and therapies. Dr. Sykes is Past President of the International Xenotransplantation Association and was Vice President of The Transplantation Society. She is currently President of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS). Dr. Sykes received numerous honors and awards, including the Medawar Prize 2018 and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and of the Association of American Physicians.

 

Meet her in the session “New Insights and Opportunities in Transplantationn

Hörsaal D
Thursday, 8. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Imaging and priming of immune responses


T-cell antigen recognition via the T-cell antigen receptor (TCR) is central to protection against pathogens and the emergence of neoplasms. If dysregulated, patients are prone to succumb to infections, cancer or suffer from autoimmunity. Despite extensive research efforts our current mechanistic understanding of T-cell antigen recognition remains still too limited to turn many rational approaches into effective therapies. Necessary change begins with quantitative, highly resolved and proven concepts of how T-cell antigen recognition operates on a molecular and (sub-) cellular level.

This is why Johannes Huppa and his team in Vienna combine innovative and quantitative molecular imaging modalities with synthetic and systems biology to ultimately clear the path for novel diagnostics and more effective treatments of cancer, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, the preservation of organ transplants and the protection form graft-versus-host disease.

Johannes Huppa is a molecular immunologist who studied biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin (1989-93). For his PhD thesis he relocated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993-1997) and Harvard Medical School (Boston, 1997-1998), where he analyzed the biogenesis and ER-quality control of the TCR-CD3 complex. As a postdoc and Research Associate at Stanford University (1999-2011) he demonstrated that T-cells signal through their TCRs over many hours and that such prolonged signaling promotes the full effector T-cell potential. He also developed advanced imaging modalities to visualize and quantitate T-cell antigen recognition at the molecular level within the immunological synapse. Following his move back to Europe (2011) and as current faculty at the Medical University of Vienna, Dr. Huppa aims to apply his specific expertise in areas of clinical relevance.

 

 

Meet him in the session “How T-Cells Recognize Antigens in Health and Disease – a Molecular Imaging Approach

Hörsaal A
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

 

The Uderhardt lab uses cutting-edge bioimaging to resolve tissue-level mechanisms of regulation of inflammation. Our main focus is on the tissue-protective function resident tissue macrophages, their interplay with stromal networks and immune effector cells, such as neutrophils.

 

 

Meet him in the session “A tissue-level perspective on inflammation and homeostasis

Hörsaal A
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

… is an expert on chemokines and cell migration. Using gene targeting in mice, he has published fundamental papers regarding the function of chemokine receptors such as CXCR5, CCR9, CCR7 and ACKR4. His current interests lie in the identification of molecular mechanisms that control the migration of immune cells to and their positioning within lymphoid organs. In addition, he studies the role of steady state turnover of dendritic cells for the induction of peripheral tolerance. Furthermore, 2-photon in vivo microscopy of immunological processes in lymphoid organs has been established in his lab and has been used to address cell-cell interactions during immune cell priming and killing of cytotoxic T cells and has gained fundamentally new insights in processes that control lymph node homing of immune cells that arrive via afferent lymphatics. More recently, he studied immune responses in Covid-19 convalescents and vaccines.

 

Meet him in the session “Qualitative and quantitative differences of immune responses by COVID-19 vaccines“.

Hörsaal A
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Autoimmune Disorders


…was full professor for neurology and neuroimmunology at the University Zürich and headed the Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Research Section and MS outpatient clinic at the University Hospital Zurich until July 2022. R. Martin trained in medicine and specialized in neurology at the University Würzburg. He pursued post-doctoral fellowships in immunology, virology and neuroimmunology in Würzburg and at the Neuroimmunology Branch, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, USA, where he worked as tenured senior investigator until 2005. Subsequently, he held full professorships in Barcelona (Vall D´Hebron University Hospital), Hamburg (Director of the Institute for Neuroimmunology and Clinical MS Research, University Hamburg) and now in Zurich. The main interests of his group are disease mechanisms of multiple sclerosis (MS) with particlar focus on T cell recognition and the role of the HLA-DR15 haplotype in MS, B- T cell interactions, disease mechanisms of JC polyoma virus-mediated progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) and developing novel treatments for MS and PML besides providing care for MS patients in one of the largest MS centers in Switzerland.

He has published over 420 scientific articles and filed numerous patents in the above areas. He and his group developed more than 10 projects from idea to early clinical proof-of-concept trials. He was a member of the Kuratorium of the Jung Foundation for Science, Hamburg and he is part of the core faculty of the Wyss Translational Center Zurich, a cofounder of the Drug Discovery Network Zurich (DDNZ), a cofounder of the Therapy Development Accelerator (TDA) at the University Zurich, and a cofounder and co-owner of Cellerys AG, a startup company specializing in tolerance induction.

 

 

Meet him in the session “The role of the HLA-DR15 haplotype in the autoimmune pathogensis of multiple sclerosis

Hörsaal D
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST



… is Professor of Immunobiology and head of the Institute of Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He studied biochemistry at the University of Vienna, carried out his doctoral thesis at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP Vienna) and performed postdoctoral studies at the Skirball Institute (NYU Medical Center) in New York. His long-term research interests focus on the characterization of molecular mechanisms that regulate the development, differentiation and effector function of T lymphocytes.

With his studies he aims to address fundamental basic research questions as well as to provide medical-relevant insight into the regulation of T cell-mediated immunity. He received several prizes including the START program award for highly-qualified young scientists from the Austrian Science Fund. He is a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a board member of the Austrian Science Fund.

He also has a strong interest in science policy and served from 2020-2021 as President of the Biomedical Alliance in Europe.

 

 

Meet him in the session “Histone deacetylases and the control of CD4+ T cell-mediated immunity

Hörsaal D
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

…is Professor of Systems immunology and the Director of Turku Bioscience Centre, Turku, Finland (https://bioscience.fi/) since 1998.
Dr. Lahesmaa received her M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Turku. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University Medical Center and a Principal Scientist at Roche Bioscience in Palo Alto, California. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, Stanford University and UCSF. She founded and directed Turku Centre for Systems Biology 2000-2015 and co-directed Turku Centre for Lifespan Research 2015-2021 and was vice-director of The Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Systems Immunology and Physiology.
Dr. Lahesmaa’s research is focused on molecular systems immunology and aims at understanding regulation of immune response and molecular mechanisms of type 1 diabetes and other human immune mediated diseases. Her studies have resulted in the identification of novel molecular mechanisms and new regulators of T cell functions.
She is President of the Finnish Society of Immunology and member of the board of Scandinavian Society of Immunology. She has published > 200 original papers and reviews and has several issued patents and patent applications. She is an elected member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters since 2012.
Web-site: https://bioscience.fi/research/molecular-systems-immunology/profile/.

 

 

Meet her in the session “Early Signs of Type 1 Diabetes

Hörsaal D
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Jochen Kalden´s Legacy - IN MEMORIAM

I am an immunologist since over 50 years. I obtained a diploma in chemistry in 1961, and a Ph.D. (Dr. rer.nat.) in 1964 in biochemistry and genetics (Hans-Georg Zachau, Max Delbrück) on the structure of serine-t-RNA at the Institute of Genetics of the University of Cologne. After three years of postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California in the laboratory of Ed Lennox on antibody synthesis and secretion in mouse plasmacytomas, I started my own research group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (Thomas Trautner). I continued to work on antibody synthesis and secretion and the role of carbohydrate attachments in these processes. Together with Walter Messer I also studied the interactions of antibodies with the enzyme beta-galactosidase. In 1971, after short research activities at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel (Michael Sela – antibodies against carbohydrate portions of antibodies) and Stanford University (Len Herzenberg – FACS development, B cell sorting), I joined the Basel Institute for Immunology (Director Niels Kai Jerne) at its beginning as Permanent Scientific Member. With Georges Köhler, I continued to study the interactions of antibodies with beta-galactosidase. With Jan Andersson,, Maria Leptin and others I studied antibody synthesis, surface deposition, turnover and secretion, now also in resting, mature splenic B-cells and in mitogen (LPS, lipoprotein) activated B-cells, plasmablasts and plasma cells. With Bob Phillips, Andreas Strasser and others I extended these studies of antibody synthesis and mitogen reactivity to fetal liver-derived preB-cells. Later, in work together with Nobuo Sakaguchi, Akira Kudo, Hajime Karasuyama, Kazuo Ohnishi and others this led to the discovery of VpreB and lambda5, forming the surrogate light chain of the preB cell receptor, and to studies of its structure and its functions during B cell development. With Ton Rolink I developed new ways to analyse B-cell development from preB-cells “in vitro” (grown and cloned on stromal cells and IL7) and “in vivo” (by transplantation) from early progenitors to plasma cells. We established similar cell lines from PAX5-deficient bone marrow CLP-like progenitors, capable of multi-potent lymphoid-myeloid differentiations (with Meinrad Busslinger). Twenty years after I had succeeded Niels Jerne as director the Basel Institute for Immunology closed in 2001, coincident with my retirement. In 2004 I started a Senior Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. Together with Corinne Bouquet, Szandor Simmons, Motokazu Tsuneto, Katharina Seiler, Julia Tornack, Marko Knoll, Katja Katjikhina and Inge Wolf, I continued to study the role of the preB-cell receptor, and I began to follow the development of HSC, progenitors and B-cells during embryonic development of the mouse, also from ES cells and iPS cells and of the infection of HSC by M.tuberculosis. In 2017 I joined the Deutsche Rheuma-Forschungszentrum, where, together with Marko Knoll, Georg Petkau, Yohei Kawano and Peter Jani, I became fascinated by the development of CLP to plasmacytoid dendritic cells, and by the influence of miR221/222 on steady-state and stress-perturbed hematopoietic stem cells, their longevity, residence in bone marrow cell niches, activation to proliferation and their aging to biased myeloid-granulocytic differentiation.

In addition to research, I organized the annual meeting of the GfI in Basel in 1976 and ,together with Klaus Eichmann and Jochen Kalden, the 7th World Congress (IUIS) in Berlin 1989. From 1993 – 1994 I was elected president of GfI/DGfI and from 1998 – 2001 president of IUIS.

Together with my wife Ursula, we established the Fritz and Ursula Melchers Stiftung, which supports young talents in Arts and Sciences – among others by the support of the Fritz and Ursula Melchers Postdoctoral/Young Investigator Award of the DGfI.

In 2004, together with Ulf Grawunder and Dirk Haasner, I co-founded “4-Antibody”, a company producing human monoclonal antibodies in

 

Meet him in the session “Einführung

Hörsaal H
Friday, 9. September, 12:15 – 13:20 CEST

My collaboration with Prof. Kalden began in the early 1980s when he took over the directorate of the Medical Clinic 3 at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg. As a biologist, medicine was new territory for me. During my doctorate, Jochen Kalden entrusted me with my own small working group and gave me the task of clarifying the etiopathogenesis of SLE (literally). This was how we described the clearance deficiency model and collected a lot of data on it until Jochen’s retirement. It is currently found in many textbooks. I had never imagined working in one place for so long; but Jochen gave me no choice.

 

Meet him in the session “Der systemische Lupus erythematodes – von der Unfähigkeit, aufzuräumen”

Hörsaal H
Friday, 9. September, 12:15 – 13:20 CEST

Hans-Hartmut Peter, Prof emerite, medical studies in Marburg, Paris, Heidelberg. MD degree 1967 from DKFZ Heidelberg, post-doctorate positions at CNRS-Cancer Villejuif (1968), Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, Ca (1970-72). Internal Medicine & Rheumatology at Hannover Medical School (board certificate 1980). 1978 Habilitation (Forms of cellular cytotoxicity). 1984-2010 Medical Director of the Department of Rheumatology& Clinical Immunology at University Hospital Freiburg. Head of the SFB620 Immunodeficiency and Co-Founder of the Freiburg Center for Chronic Immunodeficiency.

Meet him in the session “Verabschiedung

Hörsaal H
Friday, 9. September, 12:15 – 13:20 CEST

… is Medical Director of the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the University Medical Center of the University of Freiburg, Germany. He received his MD degree from the University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. After completing his MD thesis, which was focused on regulatory proteins of HIV-1, he continued research as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck Research Groups for Rheumatology, University Hospital Erlangen. In 1996 he received a fellowship from the German research society (DFG) to investigate the transcription factor NF-kB in lymphocytes in the laboratory of Dr. Sankar Ghosh, Section of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, USA.

In 1999 he returned to the University Hospital Erlangen, Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, headed by Prof. Dr. Drs. h.c.. Joachim Kalden, to complete his clinical training in internal medicine (2004) and rheumatology (2006) From 2003 to 2009 Reinhard Voll was head of a “IZKF Research Group at the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research Erlangen.   He served as senior attending physician at the Department of Rheumatology, University Hospital Erlangen for 6 years until he became Chair of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany.
His main research interests are the immunopathogenesis of SLE, plasma cell biology as well as plasma cell-targeted therapies. Other projects in his laboratory investigate cell type-selective interference with intracellular signaling pathways using the sneaking ligand approach. Professor Voll has published more than 200 papers in peer reviewed journals including Nature and Nature Medicine.

Inborn Errors of Immunity

 

…graduated as a medical doctor in the laboratory of Prof. Edgar Serfling in the Institute of Pathology at the University Würzburg.

Subsequently he graduated as a doctor of immunology (PhD) in the Laboratory of Prof. Alain Fischer at the Sorbonne University Paris. Based on this he became a scientific immunologist with diagnostic competence of the German Society of Immunology (DGFI). He completed his specialization in Pediatrics and sub-specialization in Pediatric Hematoloy/Oncology/Cell transplantation and habilitated in Pediatrics as an assistant professor on “Etiology, pathophysiology and therapy of primary immunodeficiencies with disordered development and function of the human immune system” at the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.

For a period of eight years, Dr. Hauck is heading the Division of Pediatric Immunology and Rheumatology including the Laboratory of Immunological Diagnostics and the Research Group on Immune Signaling at the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. With more than 550 patients this is one of the biggest pediatric immunology units in Germany and Europe. Dr. Hauck’s scientific focus is on identifying the etiology and pathophysiology of inborn errors of immunity (IEI) and during the last eight years he has described or was involved in the description of numerous IEI such as IKZF1 gain-of-function (GOF), OAS1 GOF, NBAS1 loss-of-function (LOF), CD137 LOF, CASP8 LOF, IKZF1 dominant-negative (DN), TGFB1 LOF, CARMIL2 LOF, CTPS1 LOF, CORO1A LOF, and LCK LOF.

Since 2021 Dr. Hauck is vice president of the German Speaking Working Party for Pediatric Immunology and member of the clinical working party (CWP) of the European Society for Immunodeficiencies (ESID).

 

Meet him in the session “Inborn Errors of Immunity as Trendsetters of Precision Medicine

Hörsaal D – Plenary Hall
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST


…holds currently a dual position between Freiburg and Vienna. In the Department of Rheumatology at the University Medical Center Freiburg she is leading the Immunology research laboratory and in the Institute of Immunology, Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Medical University of Vienna she is leading the Clinical and experimental immunology group. Marta Rizzi is physician scientist with a specialization in allergy and clinical immunology and hold a PhD in clinical and experimental immunology from the University of Genoa (Italy). In 2018, she received the habilitation in experimental medicine at the faculty of medicine of the University of Freiburg. She has been enrolled in the Heisenberg Program of the DFG in 2022, and since June 2022 is part-time professor for clinical and experimental immunology at the Vienna Medical University. Marta Rizzi research focuses on the understanding of mechanisms of immune dysregulation in autoimmunity and in primary immunodeficiency and how this can be modulated by targeted therapies. She is a passionate human B cell immunologist, and contributed to unravel early and late B cell differentiation and function defects in primary immunodeficiencies and in complex models of autoimmunity. Marta Rizzi is co-chair of the B cell research focus group of the Germany Society of Immunology, member of the organizing faculty of the European B cell network (EBCnet) school and was part of the board of the European Society of Immune Deficiency (ESID). Come to the session on Saturday, and listen how can we learn about break of B cell tolerance from defined genetic defects!

 

Meet her in the session “B cell fate decisions in autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome

Hörsaal D – Plenary Hall
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

… studied Medicine at the Universities of Düsseldorf, Freiburg (DE), and London (UK), and he did his experimental MD thesis with I. Campbell at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla (USA) and postgraduate research and clinical training in Pediatrics with C. Klein, Hanover Medical School (DE). He is the Director of the CeRUD Vienna Center for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases and LBI for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases and Adjunct PI at CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine (former Full PI). Since 2019, he was appointed as Scientific Director at the St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute. He holds an appointment as Professor of Pediatrics at MedUni Vienna and Consultant in Pediatric Hematology Oncology/Head of Immunology, St. Anna Children’s Hospital.
In his scientific work to date, the major focus has been to decipher the fundamental genetic and pathobiological mechanisms underlying inherited bone marrow failure syndromes, such as congenital neutropenias and inborn errors of immunity with a focus on diseases that are characterized by profound immune dysregulation and pediatric cancer predisposition. He and his research group have deciphered novel types of congenital neutropenia including G6PC3 deficiency and JAGN1 deficiency, enabling biological insights into neutrophil biology (Boztug K et al NEJM 2009; Boztug K et al Nat Genet 2014), and identified RhoG deficiency in a new form of familial HLH (Kalinichenko et al., Blood 2021). Their work on immunodeficiencies includes various groups of rare diseases such as IBD and defined defects in T and B cell immunity (Willmann K et al, Nat Comm 2014; Dobbs K et al, NEJM 2015; Ozen A et al, NEJM 2017; van Rijn JM et al, Gastroenterology 2018). Recently, a particular focus has been the identification of genetic factors essential for immune homeostasis, such DEF6 as a novel regulator of CTLA-4 homeostasis (Serwas NK et al., Nature Comm 2019). They identified diseases at the intersection of immunodeficiency and cancer predisposition, e.g RASGRP1 deficiency (Salzer E et al, Nat Immunol 2016), POLD1/2 deficiency (Domínguez Conde C et al, J Clin Invest 2019), CD137 deficiency (Somekh I et al, Blood 2019) and SYK GOF mutations (Wang L et al Nat Genet 2021). They have developed precision medicine approaches for some of these diseases: IL6R blockade in PRKCD deficiency (Salzer E et al, Blood 2013), recombinant IL21 in IL21 deficiency (Salzer E et al, JACI 2014), eculizumab in CD55 deficiency (Ozen A et al, NEJM 2017), SYK inhibition in SYK GOF mutations (Wang L et al, Nat Genet 2021).

 

Meet him in the session “Novel inborn errors of immunity at the border of immunodeficiency, dysregulation, and cancer predisposition

Hörsaal D – Plenary Hall
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

Immunity at Interfaces

… is Professor of Infection Biology at the Medical University of Vienna. Sylvia studied Medicine in Vienna and Berlin, is a board-certified internist and obtained her PhD at the University of Amsterdam.

Her research focuses on the innate immune response to infections in general, focusing specifically on the comprehensive repertoire of macrophage functions in health, development and disease.

Her group discovered the molecular mechanisms linking hemolysis and susceptibility to infections. Her latest research is directed towards the interplay of immune cells regulating lung tissue homeostasis in health and disease.

 

Meet her in the session “Determinants of pulmonary immune homeostasis

Hörsaal A
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

 

Associate Professor Joanna Groom is an NHMRC Investigator fellow and laboratory head in the Immunology division of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI). She received her PhD from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research followed by postdoctoral studies at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where she revealed that directed cell migration into lymphoid niches is intertwined with cell fate and function.

Her current research combines imaging and transcriptional analysis to dissect the cellular interactions that mediate protection against diverse pathogenic infections.

 

 

Meet her in the session “Targeting T cell Interactions for Tailored Immunity

Hörsaal A
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

… received her PhD from the University of Strasbourg in 2014 followed by postdoctoral studies at the Institute of Immunology at Hannover Medical School where she revealed adaptive-like anti-viral responses of human γδ T cells.

Since 2020 she is associate professor for Human Systems Immunology within the EXC RESIST (Resolving Infection Susceptibility) at Hannover Medical School.

Her current research employs systems immunology approaches to understand underlying mechanisms guiding the development, adaptation and functionality of γδ and αβ T cells during early life.

 

Meet her in the session “Maturation of innate and adaptive T cells during early life

Hörsaal A
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

Immunological Research in Allergy

…has gained Board certifications in Dermatology and Allergy and has been certified by the DGfI as “Fachimmunologe”. He has been Head of the Research-Division of Immunodermatology and Allergy Research (Full Professorship) and has in addition been Deputy Director of the clinical Department of Dermatology and Allergy at Hannover Medical School since 2008.
Thomas Werfel´s research interests focus on chronic inflammatory skin diseases including atopic dermatitis (role of allergens, microbial antigens and autoantigens, immunological mechanism, new therapeutical approaches). He has continuously received research grants from the German Research Council (DFG) and from various research foundations and received several awards for his work in skin inflammation research.

He is board member of the “Cluster of Excellence” RESIST funded by the DFG and focussing on susceptibility factors for infection in chronic diseases such as atopic dermatitis.
He has been “Fachkollegiat” (expert reviewer) in the section Inflammation/Medicine of the German Research Council (DFG) between 2012 and 2020, is board member of the German Society of Dermatology (DDG), and currently serves as Vice-President (“Past President”) of the German Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (DGAKI).

He has been coordinator of the last three editions of German Guideline on Atopic Dermatitis and is co-author of the EDF guideline on Atopic Dermatitis. Moreover, he currently serves as Editor-in Chief of “Allergologie” and “Allergologie-select”.

 

 

Meet him in the session “Atopic dermatitis – a model disease of type 2 polarized inflammation in men

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

… is professor of pediatrics with lead in pediatric allergy and pulmonary medicine at LMU Munich, university children´s hospital, Munich, Germany. Her research laboratory AG allergy/immunology comprises an interdisciplinary group of pediatric allergologist and pulmonologists, biologists, immunologists, public health, biostatisticians, mathematicians and technicians. The main research interest of her group is to identify immunological mechanisms in the development of asthma and allergic diseases in childhood. Ongoing projects in several national and international birth and cross-sectional cohort studies include the influences of regulatory immune responses of the infant immune system in the development of allergic diseases in childhood. The laboratory of Prof. Schaub has a strong interest in the effect of early maternal and environmental factors on the development of the fetal and infant immune system and subsequently the allergic phenotype. A focus is put on environment and tolerance development as well as allergy prevention.
Bianca Schaub received a number of international research awards including the Pediatric Respiratory Research Award from Europ. Respiratory Society 2010, the Henning Løwenstein Research Award from World Allergy Organization 2013 and the Research Award of the German Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (DGAKI) 2016. She strongly supports junior researchers in several boards of EAACI, DFG and national societies (DGfI, DGAKI). For the full list of publications please check on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=schaub+B&sort=date.

 

 

 

Meet her in the session “Protection against childhood allergy development: early influences on immune maturation

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Allergy affects almost 30% of the world population is therefore a major health threat to mankind. Rudolf Valenta was among the first scientists who succeeded to elucidate the molecular structures of the disease-causing allergens. He then focused his research immediately on the translation of this knowledge to the development of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for allergic patients. He was the first to demonstrate that recombinant allergens can be used to decipher the individual reactivity profiles of allergic patients which paved the road towards personalized medicine in the field of allergology. His invention, the allergen chip technology has revolutionized how allergy is diagnosed worldwide today. In the framework of European research networks, Valenta and his team have demonstrated that the chip-based detection of IgE reactivity profiles in a drop of blood taken early in life of children allows predicting the development of allergic disease in later life. This discovery introduces preventive medical examination in early childhood as a basis for allergy prevention. Based on the knowledge of the disease-eliciting allergen molecules, Rudolf Valenta and his team developed new forms of molecular allergy vaccines for the treatment of allergic patients. In a clinical study published in 2004, they were the first to demonstrate that molecular vaccines are effective for therapeutic and eventually prophylactic vaccination against allergy. This strategy is currently revolutionizing the treatment of allergic diseases and seems to have the potential for prophylactic vaccination in allergy. The unique feature of the work of Rudolf Valenta is that beginning with the molecular characterization of allergens, he and his team succeeded in translating this knowledge into new forms of diagnosis and patient care through systematic and consequent work. This work has changed the way how allergy is diagnosed and treated today and has the potential for prophylactic vaccination which may allow eradicating allergic diseases. Of note, Valenta and his team have also created molecular tests for diagnosis of virus-triggered exacerbations of respiratory diseases and they work also the development of preventive vaccines for rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus and recently SARS-CoV-2. Rudolf Valenta has received several international awards, e.g., the PhARF award, the most prestigious award in the field of allergy as well as the Sarstedt award for ground-breaking in the field of life-science and medicine. The work of Rudolf Valenta is highly cited (h-index of 102).

 

 

Meet him in the session “Lessons learned from allergen-specific immunotherapy vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development.”

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Friday, 9. September, 10:30 – 12:00 CEST

Adaptive Immunity

… studied biology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and is now the director of the Institute of Immunology at the University Medical Center (UMC) Mainz and speaker of the Research Center for Immunotherapy at UMC Mainz.

The focus of his work is to better understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of immunoregulatory processes in immunological microenvironments.

 

Meet him in the session “Context-specific regulation of the tumor microenvironment by regulatory T cells

Hörsaal F
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

 A biologist by education, Andreas Radbruch has focused his scientific curiosity on the immune system, and in particular immunological memory, and the way it provides immunity and generates immunopathology. Andreas Radbruch obtained his PhD at the Genetics Institute of the Cologne University, Germany, with Klaus Rajewsky in 1980. He later became Associate Professor there and was a visiting scientist with Max Cooper and John Kearney at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 1996, he became Director of the German Rheumatism Research Center in Berlin (DRFZ), now a Leibniz Institute, and in 1998, Professor of Rheumatology at the Charité Medical Center and Humboldt University of Berlin.

Andreas Radbruch has developed a line of research aiming at a cellular and molecular understanding of immune reactions and immunological memory. His research approach is based on the analysis of individual cells, developing and using cutting-edge technologies for cytometry and cell sorting. His lab developed the MACS technology, cytokine cytometry, the cytometric secretion assay, magnetofluorescent liposomes and other tools to analyze fate decisions and imprinting of lymphocytes. He initially focused on the transcriptional regulation of antibody class switch recombination, the shaping of antibody specificity by somatic mutation in B lymphocytes, and the epigenetic imprinting of cytokine gene expression in T lymphocytes. The discovery of long-lived (memory) plasma cells in 1997 initiated a line of research that so far has generated a new understanding of immunological memory, as maintained by functionally imprinted memory plasma cells, and memory B and T lymphocytes, which, as this group has shown, individually reside, rest and survive in niches provided by mesenchymal stromal cells, mostly in the bone marrow, but also in other tissues. Of clinical relevance, memory plasma cells secreting pathogenic antibodies have been recognized as being refractory to conventional therapies and a critical and so far unmet therapeutic target in antibody-mediated diseases. The same is true for memory T lymphocytes driving chronic inflammation, for which the group has identified molecular adaptations and novel therapeutic targets, like the transcription factor Twist1, which dampens pathogenicity and promotes persistence of Th lymphocytes in chronic inflammation.

Andreas Radbruch has received the Carol Nachman Prize for Rheumatology (2011), an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC, 2011), and the Avery Landsteiner Award (2014). He is a member of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences. He has been President of the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC; 2014-2016), the German Societies for Immunology (2009-2010) and Rheumatology (2007-2008), and the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS; 2019 -2021). He has been the Spokesperson of Section C (Lifesciences) of the Leibniz Association since 2015 and is the current Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Robert Koch Foundation.

 

Meet him in the session “A longterm perspective on adaptive immunity

Hörsaal F
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

… is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (Level 2) and heads the Vaccine Biology Laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Melbourne. A/Prof Mintern creates new understanding of how dendritic cells ignite immunity for exploitation in settings of vaccination and immunotherapy. A/Prof Mintern’s research vision extends beyond traditional immunology paradigms into new frontiers of cell biology, genetic screening and nanotechnology. The Mintern laboratory uses cutting-edge technologies including innovative CRISPR/Cas9 screens, bioengineered probes, nanoparticles and models of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccination to advance dendritic cell biology, an important area of breakthrough science. This research creates avenues for clinical advances for vaccination and immunotherapy. With recent outstanding publications in Science (2022) and Nature Communications (2022), A/Prof Mintern has published > 90 manuscripts, has a field weighted citation index of 3.66 (2016-2021) and is ranked in the top 0.063% experts in dendritic cells of 96,220 published authors worldwide (Expertscape). A/Prof Mintern has been awarded funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia and Australia Research Council.

 

Meet her in the session “Unexpected Roles for Ubiquitin in Immunity

Hörsaal F
Saturday, 10. September, 09:00 – 10:30 CEST

Plenary Session

Immune Tolerance

 

Meet him in the session “Macrophages: guardian angels of tissue homeostasis and immune tolerance

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Saturday, 10. September, 11:00 – 12:30 CEST

 

… is Professor of Translational Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy at King’s College London. She received BA and MS degrees in Biochemistry at Rutgers University, USA and a PhD in B cell and IgE immunology at King’s College London under Science and Engineering Research Council and SmithKline Beecham-funded scholarships (1995).

She subsequently developed immunotherapeutic strategies for cancer and inflammatory diseases in academic and biotechnology environments. She was appointed as NIHR/BRC Senior Research Fellow in 2007 and Senior Lecturer in 2013.

Her antibody immunotherapy team studies patient B cells, macrophages, Th2 responses in the cancer context. She designed and translated anti-tumour IgE antibodies from concept to the oncology clinic.

 

 

Meet her in the session “AllergoOncology: IgE class antibodies for cancer immunotherapy

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Saturday, 10. September, 11:00 – 12:30 CEST

…is a Distinguished Professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC) Osaka University, Japan. His main research interest is in regulatory T cells (Tregs), an indispensable constituent of the immune system for the maintenance of immune self-tolerance and homeostasis. His recent research is focused on targeting Tregs in clinical settings for evoking and enhancing tumor immunity and for treating autoimmune and other inflammatory diseases.
Sakaguchi obtained an M.D. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1982 from Kyoto University, Japan, where he was trained as a pathologist and immunologist. After performing postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University as a Lucille P. Markey Scholar, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the Scripps Research Institute. He returned to Japan in 1991 and continued his immunology research as the Head of the Department of Immunopathology at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo. From 1998 to 2011, he was a Professor of Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences Kyoto University and served as the Director of the Institute for several years. In 2011, his lab moved to Osaka University. He was elected to Foreign Member of National Academy of Sciences USA in 2012, and has been awarded many international prizes including Cancer Research Institute’s William B. Coley Award in 2004, Keio Medical Science Prize in 2008, Canada Gairdner International Award in 2015, the Crafoord Prize in 2017, the German Immunology Award in 2019, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2020, and the Robert Koch Prize in 2020. He received an honorary degree from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2019, the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2009, and the Order of Culture, the highest accolade for Japanese scholars, in 2019 from the Emperor of Japan.

 

 

Meet him in the session “Control of antigen-presenting cells by regulatory T cells to induce immune tolerance

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Saturday, 10. September, 11:00 – 12:30 CEST

Microbiome and Metabolism


… is a British/Swiss scientist who trained in Cambridge, London, Hamilton (Onatario) and Bern before joining the ETH Zürich.

She is fascinated by how the immune system works in the context of complex microbial communities, and in applying both wet-lab and quantitative biology approaches to these problems.

 

Meet her in the session “What role does the intestinal immune system play in controlling your intestinal microbiota?

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Friday, 9. September, 13:30 – 15:00 CEST

 

… is Professor in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, School of Chemistry, at UCM.

The major focus for his research group is the study of the role of human dendritic cells in the context of inflammatory diseases, including allergy and infection, to identify potential novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of such diseases. The group is also interested in furthering understanding of the molecular mechanism involved in allergy and Type 2 immune responses, as well as in the development of alternative protocols to identify novel food allergens that allow the improvement of the diagnosis and management of food allergy.

Professor Palomares’ research has so far generated 125 publications in world leading, peer-reviewed international journals and 4 book chapters. He has been invited to participate in more than 100 conferences at national and international meetings and has received 10 awards. He has undertaken the role of Chairperson on more than 50 occasions during scientific sessions and has been involved in the organization of 25 international congresses.

Professor Palomares is a member of the EAACI, AAAAI, SEI and SEBBM societies. He is Executive Committee (ExCom) member of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI), Associate Editor of International Archives of Allergy and Immunology and member of the Editorial Boards of Allergy, Clinical & Experimental Allergy and Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the EAACI Knowledge Hub.

 

 

Meet him in the session “Novel vaccines targeting dendritic cells for allergy and infection

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Friday, 9. September, 13:30 – 15:00 CEST

The focus of my group’s research is the interaction between commensal and pathogenic microorganisms and the mucosal immune system in the small intestine. In particular, we are interested in the situation of the neonate host that transits from the environmentally protected and sterile situation in utero to microbial and environmental exposure after birth on its way to establish a stable host-microbial homeostasis. This is reflected by many striking structural and functional differences between the neonate and adult intestinal epithelium and mucosal immune system.
Beside a better understanding the mutual interaction between commensal bacteria and the host we aim at identifying age-specific differences in the antimicrobial host response and susceptibility to infection with enteropathogenic microorganisms such as enteric Salmonella, enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), Listeria monocytogenes, rotavirus, and Giardia lamblia. These pathogens cause a very significant morbidity and – particularly in the infant population – also a significant mortality worldwide.
We hope that a better understanding of the feto-neonatal transition of the intestinal mucosa, the postnatal establishment of host-microbial homeostasis and the protective immune response to infection will contribute to reduce childhood mortality and reduce long-term sequelae.

 

 

Meet him in the session “Host-microbial interaction at the postnatal intestinal mucosa.

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Friday, 9. September, 13:30 – 15:00 CEST

COVID-19 SPECIAL

… is full professor and director of the Institute of Virology at the University of Cologne. His research focuses on the biology of human B lymphocytes and antibodies with a particular interest in the humoral immune response to infectious pathogens, such as HIV-1, HCV, Ebolavirus, and SARS-CoV-2. Together with his team, he investigates new approaches for single B cell analyses and develops broad and potent monoclonal antibodies to prevent and treat infectious diseases. In addition, his team conducts early-phase clinical trials to translate basic laboratory findings into clinical applications.
Florian Klein received his MD degree from Cologne University in 2005 and underwent clinical training in internal medicine. In 2009, he joined the Rockefeller University where he became Assistant Professor in Clinical Investigation in 2013. In 2015, he received a Heisenberg Professorship at the University of Cologne and became director of the Institute of Virology in 2017.

Meet him in the session “Monoclonal antibodies to prevent and treat COVID-19

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Thursday, 8. September, 14:00 – 15:30 CEST

After his studies of veterinary medicine in Vienna, Dr. Bergthaler did his doctoral work at the Institute of Experimental Immunology (Dr. Hans Hengartner and Dr. Rolf Zinkernagel) of the University Hospital Zurich, University/ETH Zurich. This was followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Geneva (Dr. Daniel Pinschewer) and at the Institute for Systems Biology (Dr. Alan Anderem) in Seattle, US. In 2011, Dr. Bergthaler started his independent research group at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria. His research group focuses on disease-relevant questions of host-pathogen interactions in areas such as superinfections, viral hepatitis and immunometabolism (e.g. Bhattacharya A et al. Immunity 2015, Schliehe C et al. Nat Immunol 2015, Lercher A et al. Immunity 2019, Baazim H et al. Nat Immunol 2019, Lercher A et al. Immunity 2020, Krausgruber T et al. Nature 2020, Baazim H et al. Nat Rev Immunol 2021). In the past two and a half years, Dr. Bergthaler`s team contributed to the national pandemic management in numerous ways, which included sequencing of the majority of Austrian full virus genomes deposited in GISAID so far and publications on key questions of genomic epidemiology, virological and immunological properties and novel surveillance methodology (e.g. Popa AM et al. Sci Transl Med 2020, Agerer B et al. Sci Immunol 2021, Amman F et al. Nat Biotech Accepted). Dr. Bergthaler advises various federal authorities and actively contributes in various ways to science communication and outreach. Since January 2022, Dr. Bergthaler is Professor of Molecular Immunology and head of the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology at the Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology of the Medical University of Vienna. He remains Adjunct Principal Investigator at CeMM. The Bergthaler laboratory continues their work on fundamental questions of systemic immunometabolism in experimental models of viral infection and cutting-edgepathogen surveillance on the population level.

Meet him in the session “Viral variant-resolved wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at national scale

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Thursday, 8. September, 14:00 – 15:30 CEST

… is the George H Humphreys, II Professor of Surgical Sciences (in Surgery) and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University. The focus of Dr. Farber’s research is on anti-viral immunity and human immunology. Dr. Farber’s laboratory originally identified a lung tissue resident memory T cells which mediate optimal protective immunity to respiratory virus infections. These findings led her to establish a major initiative in human immunology to study immunity in tissue sites, through the establishment of a human tissue resource in which multiple tissues are obtained from human organ donors through collaborations with organ procurement agencies. and its development from infancy through adulthood in multiple mucosal and lymphoid tissues from organ donors of all ages. This resource was established over 11 years ago and thus far samples from over 570 organ donors have been obtained for investigation and mapping of immune cells by cellular and molecular profiling over different sites and the entire human lifespan. In this talk, Dr. Farber will present results on distribution of virus-specific memory T and B cells following infection with SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses and this differs from vaccine-induced memory.
Dr. Farber currently is the Director of a new initiative in Human Tissue immunity and Disease at Columbia University and leads NIH/NIAID-funded Program grants on human immunity, anti-viral responses and is part of the Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC), and the NIH/NHLBI consortium on human lung aging. In addition to the NIH, her research is supported by the Helmsley Charitable trust and the Chan-Zuckerberg seed network for the Human Cell Atlas. She is a fellow of the AAAS, and has served on advisory committees for the NIH, American Association of Immunologists (AAI), and multiple editorial boards.

Meet her in the session “Human Tissue immunity in infection and vaccination

Hörsaal F – Plenary Hall
Thursday, 8. September, 14:00 – 15:30 CEST