Professor Luke O’Neill announces a Special Symposium on Immunology

TBSI Symposium

Professor Luke O’Neill is delighted to announce a Special Symposium on Immunology in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute on July 10th 2012. This will feature 2 Nobel Laureate Immunologists Peter Doherty and Jules Hoffmann, and 3 other prominent immunologists Dr Mike Lenardo (National Institutes of Health, USA), Prof Padraic Fallon (TCD School of Medicine) and Prof Doreen Cantrell (University of Dundee). Luke is very happy to welcome Peter and Jules to TBSI in advance of their participation in the Euroscience Open Forum / Dublin City of Science 2012 conference.

Peter Doherty won the prize in 1996 for the discovery of how our immune systems fight viruses such as influenza virus, whilst Jules Hoffmann won in 2011 for the discovery of fundamental processes in innate immunity common to all animals and plants. Their discoveries have far reaching consequences for research into vaccines, cancer, transplantation and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as arthritis. They will describe their journey to the Nobel Prize and their latest research. The 3 other prominent immunologists will discuss current frontier areas of biomedical research.

The event commences at 14:00 with the following agenda:

1400 Opening by Luke O’Neill

1405 - 1445 Jules Hoffmann (University of Strasbourg) : ‘The antimicrobial defence of Drosophila: a paradigm for innate immunity’

1445 - 1530 Peter Doherty (University of Melbourne), introduced by Cliona O’Farrelly : ‘Dealing with Killers’

1530 - 1550: Coffee Break

Chair: Kingston Mills

1550 - 1635 Michael Lenardo (National Institutes of Health) : ‘Surprising signaling roles for Mg2+ in the immune system revealed by a new primary immunodeficiency’

1635 - 1720 Doreen Cantrell (University of Dundee) : ‘Regulating T cell metabolism and migration’

1720- 1800 Padraic Fallon (Trinity College Dublin) : ‘Atopy and asthma: does the skin matter?’

Closing remarks - Luke O’Neill

The symposium promises to be a very stimulating discussion on how science is being brought to bear on the effort to find new treatments for many diseases.

If you would like to attend please send an email to [email protected] by close of business on Friday 6th July.

For more information please http://www.tcd.ie/biosciences/events/symposium.php