Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008

University Of Texas Med Br Galveston, Galveston TX

Investigators

Abstract

Support is sought to convene a meeting of young scientists and internationally prominent researchers to explore the interface between the immune system and the liver in health and disease. "Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008" will be held in Galveston, Texas, January 25-27, 2008 and will be the third in a series of similar, very successful meetings held in 1999 and 2002. The meeting will build on the successful format of the previous meetings by inviting scientists from multiple disciplines, including basic immunology, cell biology, transplant biology, virology and clinical hepatology, to consider liver diseases from different perspectives. The scientific goal of the conference is to gain insight into regulation of intrahepatic innate and adaptive immunity in response to liver allografts, persistent infection with agents like the hepatitis C and B viruses, hepatocellular cancer, and diseases like primary biliary cirrhosis and autoimmune hepatitis. Since our last meeting in 2002, there has been rapid progress in unraveling positive and negative signals regulating immunity at extrahepatic sites. For instance, insight into the importance of regulatory T cell activity, co-inhibitory signaling through molecules like programmed death 1 (PD-1), Toll-like receptor signaling, and the important linkage between innate and adaptive immune responses has advanced dramatically. Nevertheless our understanding of how these critical immunoregulatory pathways operate in the healthy and diseased liver is still rudimentary. To help fill this gap in knowledge and define future research needs, the meeting has been designed to promote interaction between scientists with expertise in systemic and liver immunology. This focus distinguishes "Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008" from other general specialty liver or immunology meetings, and in the past has fostered valuable new collaborative relationships between scientists in different disciplines. Our primary objective in requesting R13 Conference funds for "Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008" is to again facilitate participation of junior investigators (senior postdocs, instructors, and assistant professors), and scientists from traditionally under-represented groups (i.e., minorities and women). Conference Grant funding for meetings in 1999 and 2002 was key to ensuring participation of these scientists in poster sessions, as speakers, and as session Chairs to moderate the discussion essential to this multidisciplinary meeting.