Welcome to the homepage of the Germinal Centre Conference, the 16th international conferece on lymphatic tissues and germinal centres in immune reactions, which was held from
July 5th — 9th, 2009 at the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

in cooperation with the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS).

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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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