Upcoming Events and meetings
Innate immunity is a pillar of the host’s defense against infection and noxious self. Pathogen or danger recognition systems (PRRs) including TLRs, inflammasomes, and RIG-I-like receptors are broadly recognized as central nodes of innate immune responses and have a solid place in the immunologists’ hearts. The complement system, however, albeit being the evolutionary oldest PRR, is often perceived as the ‘Stiefkind’ of innate immunity and generally evokes less excitement. This view is changing: complement has recently been up-graded from a mere lytic pathogen-killer to an intracellularly-active orchestrator of normal cell physiology. This, together with the realization that an increasing number of human diseases, among those COVID-19, involve complement perturbations has spurred a regained interest in complement biology and its therapeutic targeting. Our knowledge, however, of how complement exerts non-canonical activities and how it intersects with other PRRs is sparse. This conference will provide a timely account of recent paradigm shifts in our understanding of complement/PRR-instructed immunity with a specific eye on emerging roles in basic cellular processes including regulation of chromatin structure, metabolism, cell death, clearance of cellular debris/corpses, and maintenance of normal CNS function. A second focus is on exploring how aberrant function of these new PRR activities contribute to infection and autoimmunity but also to less intuitive clinical conditions like changes in cognition and behavior. This holistic and ‘complement-inclusive’ vantage-point on PRR biology brings together interdisciplinary investigators from academia and industry for cross-fertilization of novel ideas and collaborations towards biomedical progress in harnessing complement to combat human disease.
The Frontiers Meeting 2021 is an International Society of Nephrology (ISN) event hosted by the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research.
The 2021 Frontiers Meeting will focus on the two prototypical complement-mediated kidney diseases: atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) and C3 Glomerulopathies /Membranoproliferative Glomerulonephritis (C3G/MPGN), both very rare and severe diseases. aHUS is an ultra-rare disease with an estimated prevalence of 1/100,000, while primary C3G/MPGN has an estimated prevalence of 16/100,000.
Next EMCHD is postponed to 2022 – Tentative plan is to hold conference on August 25-29, 2022 at the same venue in Bern.
The meeting will provide the complement community with a great opportunity to share and discuss their clinical as well as laboratory results with colleagues and hear about new findings within our fields. This will be complemented by a teaching day in a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere in the heart of Switzerland.
The course is aimed at researchers and clinicians interested in neuro-immune interactions and neuroinflammation. We particularly welcome the active participation of early career researchers and have included several slots in our programme for short talks, based on abstract submissions.
The first day will be focused on Novel mechanistic understanding of neuro-immune interactions and the second day will address Neuro-immune interactions in the clinic and How to target neuro-immune interaction,
This 3rd meeting of the Ab&Complement meeting series will focus attention on key advances in both fields with the aim at fostering discussions between antibody experts and complement experts. Some of the critical topics to be covered include antibody & complement functions, FcR and CR, Ab glycosylation and anti-inflammatory activity, Structure-function linkage, Novel technologies, complement and antibody therapies.
This meeting on Antibody & Complement will be a forum for leaders in the field and new investigators coming from academia, industry and research institutes to discuss where the field is going and what challenges lie ahead.