Tolerance in Transplantation and Autoimmunity

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal is to request support for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled ?Tolerance in Transplantation[unreadable] and Autoimmunity?, which will be held in Keystone, Colorado from January 29 ? February 3, 2008. The past[unreadable] 40 years has seen enormous progress in the treatment of organ transplantation and autoimmunity. However,[unreadable] with the modern era of immunosuppression, significant problems remain including strikingly higher rates of[unreadable] cardiovascular disease, opportunistic infection, and malignancy. The ability to induce immune tolerance would[unreadable] solve most of these problems. There has been enormous progress in our understanding of the basic processes[unreadable] of both central and peripheral tolerance. Moreover, the development of novel cell surface, soluble and cellular[unreadable] targets has created new therapeutics. The goals of this meeting will be to present cutting edge basic and[unreadable] clinical tolerance research related to transplantation and autoimmunity. Presentations will focus on both[unreadable] advances in basic understanding of immune tolerance, pre-clinical models of disease as well as far-reaching[unreadable] mechanistic studies devoted to the understanding of diseases and therapeutic interventions. The meeting[unreadable] stands out as bringing both basic science and clinical research experts together to explore the major biological[unreadable] pathways of tolerance at the molecular, cellular, pre-clinical and clinical levels. Thus, the meeting will promote[unreadable] critical interchanges between scientists who study these processes and educate students. The long-term[unreadable] objective is to increase our understanding of basic tenets underlying tolerance, to establish new collaborative[unreadable] research projects between basic and clinical researchers and to excite future scientists in this field of study.