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First Round of Abstract Submission Ends: Jan 30, 2025
Extended Early Bird Ends: Sep 30, 2024

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Cong-Yi Wang
Huazhong University of Science & Technology, China
Title: Will be update soon
Director：The Center for Biomedical Research, Tongji Biobank, Tongji Hospital
Director：National Health Commission Key Laboratory for Respiratory Diseases
Professor, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, HUST
Study Section：NIH; ADA; JDFI; Austria Science Foundation; UK Welcome Trust; Hongkong Research Grants Council; National Medical Research Council (NARC), MOH, Singapore; Natural Science Foundation of China (Regular Grant, Young Scientist Development Grant and Outsanding Young Scientist Grant); Changjiang Scholarship, Ministry of Education of China; Program Project Grants, Ministry of Science and Technology of China.
Faculty member: Faculty Opinion
President： The Society of Scientific Research and Management of Hospitals in Wuhan
Vice President：Chinse Society of Transplantation Immunology
Vice Chair：Type 1 Diabetes Alliance in China
Editor：International Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Genetics
Associate Editor：Frontiers in Immunology
Editorial Board Members: Diabetes & Metabolism Journal, American Journal of Translational Research, and World Journal of Diabetes
Peer Reviewer：Diabetes, Advanced Materials, Molecular Therapy, Nucleic Acids Research, American Journal of Human Genetics, Diabetologia, Science Advances, JEM, JCI, and Nature Communications of more than 30 journals.
Funding: The research team was supported by the 5 key project grants, 1 oversea collaborative grant and 1 international communication grant from NSFC; 1 program project director and 3 program project PIs from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China; and 1 grant from the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes. Previous Positions in USA: Tenured Associate Professor at the Medical College of Georgia; Laboratory Director of the Georgia Esoteric & Molecular Laboratory, Medical College of Georgia
Patents and publications: Seventeen patents with more than 210 peer reviewed publications including NEJM, Nat Genet, Cell Metabolism Circulation, Ann Intern Med, Sci Adv, ERJ, Nat Commun, Mol Ther, JACI, AJHG，Diabetes, Diabetologia, JCI and so on.
Dr. Jean-Christophe Beltra
University of Basel, Switzerland
Title: Leveraging cytokine signals to rewire exhausted CD8 T cells
I was trained as a Cancer Immunologist in France and obtained my Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Montreal. Supported by fellowships, notably from the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), I have worked with Dr. Hélène Decaluwe (Ste Justine Hospital Research Center/University of Montreal-Canada) in deciphering the impact of key cytokine signals on CD8 T cell exhaustion. This seminal work was among the first studies demonstrating a key role for cytokine signals in the process of CD8 T cell exhaustion (Beltra et al. PNAS 2016). In 2017, I joined Dr. E. John Wherry’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN-USA) for a postdoctoral training. Supported by a Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) fellowship, I redefined the heterogeneity and developmental biology of exhausted CD8 T cells (TEX). I notably discovered a new subset of TEX named TEX intermediate (TEXint) that mediates the benefits of PD-1-based therapy (Beltra et al. Immunity, 2020). Following up on that work, I subsequently identified the transcription factor STAT5a as a key driver of TEXint cells development and provided first evidence for the possibility of therapeutically reprogramming TEX cells into better cell-states (Beltra et al. Immunity, 2023). Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), I recently joined the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel as an Assistant Professor. Here, my program is centered on deciphering new axes regulating the biology of TEX cells that could be leveraged therapeutically to improve PD-1-based therapies.
Dr. Sophie Brouard
Title: Breg cells as new therapy in transplantation
Doctor Sophie Brouard is director of research in the INSERM unit located in Nantes (france) and working in Immunology and transplantation. She is an immunologist interested in fundamental and translational questions on the process of rejection and tolerance in transplantation. The central questions her group addresses are what are the immunological mechanisms involved in rejection and tolerance in human and Is it possible to identify biomarkers for these two processes that would allow a better monitoring of the patients. Before taking her position of Director of research in the INSERM Unit of Nantes, Sophie Brouard is also doctor in Veterinary Science since 1994. Since 2011, she held position of director of the CENTAURE national RTRS transplantation network in France. She received the Bronze medal from the french CNRS national research institute in 2004, the price from “medicine academy” in 2012 and the medal of innovation of the CNRS in 2020. She funded two companies, TclandExpression and Effimune. She participates and is co-authors of 10 patents. She published around 200 papers and review. FH=56.
Prof. Ronen Alon
Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
Title: The LFA-1-ICAM-1 axis in lymphocyte migration and differentiation in infection and cancer: findings and puzzles
Ronen Alon is a professor of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a chair of the Department of Immunology and Regenerative Biology. His research explores the molecular mechanisms of leukocyte trafficking through blood vessels to target tissues in infection, inflammation and cancer. His group also studies how specific adhesion molecules mediate immune cell communications in specialized sites such as lymph nodes and solid tumors. He has also had long time interest in the roles of specific chemotactic cytokines, chemokines in leukocyte interactions with blood vessels and immune cells. Alon received his Ph.D. in biophysics and biochemistry from the Weizmann Institute in 1993, conducted a post doctoral research at Harvard University with Dr. Timothy Springer and joined the Weizmann Institute in 1996 where he became a full professor in 2009. Alon is a member of EMBO, was the president of the Israeli Immunological Society and has served in numerous academic, administrative and educational positions. He has published 200 research papers, reviews, and book chapters. Alon chaired the 2024 Gordon Conference on Chemotactic Cytokines in Maine U.S.A..