Thank you for your participation
The GCC16 local organising committee would like to thank all contributors and participants who made this conference a success!
Conference topics
The Germinal Centre Conference has a long-standing tradition of more than 30
years. Leading scientists in Immunology meet to discuss recent developments of innate
and adaptive immunity with special emphasis on medical issues. Topics such as
mechanisms for lymphoid tissue formation, B cell immunity and cellular interactions
down to molecular mechanisms are traditionally covered. This tradition is followed
up by corresponding sessions about T cell selection, activation, and tolerance as well
as B cell maturation and activation.
Following sessions will be part of the conference:
- Two-photon imaging: Techniques and potential
- Building high affinity humoral responses
- Mechanisms driving lymphoid tissue development and germinal centre reaction
- T cells in lymphoid tissue
- Adaptive innate immunity and vice versa
- B cell diversity in health and disease
- Tertiary lymphoid tissue and Ectopic germinal centres in autoimmunity
- Neuro-Endocrine-Immune-Interactions
For more information please have a look at the scientific program here.
The 16th Germinal Centre Conference will extend its tradition in two
directions: Autoimmune diseases become more and more relevant and are
often associated with neogenesis of lymphoid tissue. In order to pave
the ground for the development of well targeted drugs in autoimmune
diseases, the healthy and the ectopic development of lymphoid tissue as
well as its function in disease progression have to be understood. This
subject will therefore be a major focus of the conference. Mathematical
modelling of the adaptive immune responses and lymphoid tissue
development have proven during the last years to make successful
predictions that can induce novel and conclusive experiments. The
conference organisors, therefore, support mathematical modelling to
become a standard repertoire of research in Immunology and encourage
corresponding abstracts.
GEBIN follow-up conference
The connection of nervous and immune system will be further discussed in a followup
conference of the German-Endocrine-Brain-Immune-Network (GEBIN). GEBIN
meets every two years and in 2009 the GEBIN-meeting will take place at the same
location from 9.7.-11.7.2009, starting on the last day of the Germinal Centre Conference and ending July 11th at 6pm. The last session of the Germinal Centre Conference will
be chaired by the coordinator of GEBIN.
The interaction between both communities
will be promoted by allowing participants of the second meeting to visit sessions of
the Germinal Centre Conference and vice versa.
Please do also take a note of the ECI 2009 Berlin, the Second Joint Meeting of all European National Societies of Immunology from September 13th – 16th 2009.
Technical satellite workshop
In addition to the classical scientifc sessions the conference will hold a satellite
workshop the afternoon prior to the keynote address.
This workshop will explore the powerful methods of imaging immune cells
under various conditions with a focus on the now intensively used
intravital two-photon microscopy.
Confirmed speakers
Francesca Aloisi (Rome, Italy)
Claudia Berek (Berlin, Germany)
Yolanda Carrasco (Madrid, Spain)
Arup K. Chakraborty (Cambridge, USA)
Yang-Xin Fu (Chicago, USA)
Ronald N. Germain (Bethesda, USA)
Matthias Gunzer (Magdeburg, Germany)
Cobi J. Heijnen (Utrecht, Netherlands)
Serge Lebecque (Lyon, France)
Reina Mebius (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Michel Nussenzweig (New York, USA)
Tri Giang Phan (San Francisco, USA)
Alan Perelson (Los Alamos, USA)
Andreas Radbruch (Berlin, Germany)
Rainer H. Straub (Regensburg, Germany)
John G. Tew (Richmond, USA)
Salvatore Valitutti (Toulouse, France)