The immune system has the unique capacity to interact with almost every tissue in the body to promote protection against threats and to preserve organismal homeostasis. Understanding how immune cells adapt their function to the needs of each distinct tissue environment is challenging. It requires thinking about immunity in the context of a whole organism, where immune function is integrated to other physiological systems – such as the nervous system, metabolic tissues and barrier sites – as well as to our meta-organismal partner: the microbiome.

To help to address this challenge, the Cell-Weizmann Institute of Science Symposium: Next Gen Immunology is bringing together leading scientists who think about immunity in different contexts and have in common the perspective of an immune system that is an integral part of the meta-organism. They are also driving the development of new tools that are much needed to understand the functional diversity of the immune response: from live in vivo imaging and single-cell technologies, to ‘omics’ approaches.

We aim to stimulate exciting discussions, to foster new interdisciplinary collaborations, and to promote cross-pollination of ideas that can help us to move on to the next generation of immunology research.

We hope to see you there!

Topics:

The Meta-organism: microbiome and its host
Immunity at the epithelial barriers
The immune system and its neuro-metabolic interactions
Immunity in cancer and other diseased tissues
Technologies for discovery of novel immunological insights