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First Round of Abstract Submission Ends: Apr 15, 2026
Extended Early Bird Ends: Aug 28, 2025

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Juliane Walz
University of Tübingen, Germany
Title:

To be Confirmed

Juliane S. Walz (*1985) is a hematologist, oncologist and immunologist. Her research work focusses on the development of peptide-based immunotherapies for malignant and infectious disease until the stage of clinical evaluation. After a research scholarship at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA she was appointed in 2022 on a full (W3) Professorship for Peptide-based immunotherapy and as Medical Director of the CCU Translational Immunology at the University of Tübingen.
Prof. Annalisa Chiocchetti
University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy
Title: From patient to prediction: personalized clinical trials on chip to predict immunomodulatory drug response in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Annalisa Chiocchetti is Full Professor of Immunology at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara Italy, where she leads the Immunomics Laboratory within the Center for Translational Research on Autoimmune and Allergic Diseases. Trained in biology, medicine, and clinical biochemistry, she has built an internationally recognized research program spanning precision immunology, extracellular vesicles, multi omics, artificial intelligence, and organ on chip technologies. She is Coordinator of the EU Horizon 2020 FLAMIN GO project, which pioneers patient specific joint on chip platforms for rheumatoid arthritis, aiming to enable personalized clinical trials on chip and rapid therapeutic prediction at diagnosis. Prof Chiocchetti has authored more than 120 scientific publications, holds multiple international patents, and coordinates major European consortia in musculoskeletal regeneration and advanced in vitro models. She currently directs advanced facilities for next generation flow cytometry, imaging mass cytometry, and New Approach Methodologies at UPO.
Prof. Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet
Lorraine University, France
Title: Will Update
Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet is a Professor of Gastroenterology at Nancy University Hospital and an internationally recognized expert in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). He founded in 2023 the IHU INFINY, an institute dedicated to the prevention and cure of IBD, thanks to a national grant awarded by the French President, Emmanuel Macron. Between 2015 and 2023, he was the President of the Groupe d'Etude Thérapeutique des Affections Inflammatoires du Tube Digestif (GETAID), a unique national network of French IBD centers running innovative clinical trials that is internationally recognized for conducting high-quality research. Between 2020 and 2023, he was the President of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization (ECCO) and Scientific Secretary of the International Organization for the Study of IBD (IOIBD), the two leading international organizations in IBD. He is currently the principal investigator of several dozen ongoing local, national and international academic and industry clinical trials. He has raised nearly 35 million euros in funding over the past few years. He is the President of the ICARE project, a European prospective cohort that has enrolled 10,000 IBD patients between 2016 and 2019 and that is assessing for the first time the real risk-benefit profile of current therapeutic strategies. He has initiated and has been responsible for numerous international projects (STRIDE initiative, defining early Crohn’s disease, etc.). Thanks to his position in international organizations, he has developed several international indexes such as the IOIBD disease severity index and the WHO disability index for IBD. He has published more than 1,100 articles referenced in PubMed. His current H-index is of 116 and he is the top-rated expert in Crohn’s disease in the world according to “Expertscape”. He was ranked No. 1 in the top 14 authors of relevant literature of IBD diagnosis in nearly 10 years (Liu C, et al. Front Immunol. 2022). He was also ranked No. 1 in the top 10 most productive authors in Crohn’s disease treatment research between 2004 and 2023 (Xu L, et al. Front Pharmacol. 2024). Moreover, since 2019 he is ranked by Clarivate among the “highly cited researchers”.
Dr. Li Yang
National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA
Title: Will Update
Dr. Yang’s research program focuses on the mechanisms underlying tumor-host interplay in cancer metastatic progression. Dr. Yang has made seminal contributions to the identification of the immune and inflammatory mediators in the anti- and pro-tumor functional switch of TGF-β, mechanisms of myeloid cell recruitment in the tumor microenvironment, as well as myeloid TGF-β signaling in cancer immune surveillance and in inflammatory stroke.
Prof. Anne Astier
Infinity Institute in Toulouse, France
Title: How risk factors for multiple sclerosis contribute to immune dysregulation
Anne Astier is Research Director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Infinity Institute in Toulouse, France. She obtained her PhD in Immunology from the University Paris VI, now Sorbonne. After a postdoc at Harvard on integrin signaling, she joined the CNRS to focus on human T cell activation. She has worked in the USA, the UK and now back to France where her group investigates immune responses in inflammatory diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. She notably investigates how risk factors for MS, such as vitamin D, modulate T cell responses. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0144-3431
Prof. David C. Wraith
UK
Title: Antigen-specific immunotherapy of autoimmune diseases
David Wraith is a research immunologist who began his career at NIMR, London in 1981 working on the immune response to viruses. In 1986, he received MRC funding to work at Stanford University where he developed a lifelong interest in autoimmune diseases. This led to him establishing a Wellcome Trust funded research laboratory in Cambridge. In 1995, he took up the Chair in Experimental Pathology at Bristol and between 2016 and 2023 was Director of the Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy in Birmingham. David has over 200 publications with >21,000 citations. His group recently defined the cellular and molecular basis of antigen-specific immunotherapy leading to definition of the genetic and epigenetic control of the approach.

His group successfully completed phase 2 clinical trials of peptide immunotherapy in Multiple Sclerosis and phase 1 trials in Graves’ hyperthyroid disease. Antigen-specific immunotherapy with peptides has the potential to treat many serious autoimmune and allergic diseases for which there is no effective treatment: currently >1/5 children will suffer from an allergy or autoimmune condition during their lifetime. This approach is designed to improve the safety and efficacy of immunotherapy by specifically targeting the cells involved in the disease.
Prof. Moutih Rafei
Title: Will Update
Expert in cellular and molecular immunology with major focus on cell-based therapies and therapeutics. Innovative scientist who can continuously propose and implement new research projects and foster external collaborations based on emerging human disease understanding. Ability to work comfortably under pressure while maintaining high energy level in a field that emphasizes speed, organizational skills, decisiveness, and effective interpersonal communications. Expertise in training laboratory personnel with consistent track record of surpassing standards and goals. Research Interests: - Cytokines engineering and biology - Autoimmune diseases and oncology - Cell therapy and immuno-therapeutics - Discovery of novel compounds for stimulating thymopoiesis - Ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem cells
Prof. Jordana Coelho dos Reis
Federal Univ. of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Title: To be Confirmed
Dr. Jordana Coelho dos Reis is an mid career professor in tenure, Leader of the ProsPERA research group and head of the Basic and Applied Virology Lab at the Department of Microbiology of Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Dr. Reis' research program focuses on studying antiviral and immunomodulatory strategies to treat and prevent infectious diseases with focus on viral chronic infections. She has had a post-doctoral training at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, affiliated at the time to the Rockefeller University (New York, USA), where she worked on projects related to humanized T-cell mouse models and CD1-restricted T cells as therapeutic and vaccine adjuvants for HIV and Malaria. Dr. Reis worked as an early career scientist on projects related to human immunology of infectious diseases at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz/MINAS, Brazil) before joining as a professor at UFMG. Dr. Reis has an extensive collaborative network of national and international institutions including at the Peter Doherty Institute (Melbourne, AU) and Columbia University. She has received several awards such as the Early Career Investigator award from the AASLD-USA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Awards and the Outstanding Award at the Keystone Symposia. Dr. Reis represents Brazil as a member of an international initiative of the Global Virus Network and in the COV-IRT, COVID International Team. Dr. Reis has published up to 120 articles throughout her carrier in Q1-ranked journals, including Nature Communications, Antiviral Research and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Her main research interests are viral immunology in humans, vaccines and antiviral therapeutic development.
Prof. Huard Bertrand
Univ. Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS, France
Title: A proliferation inducing ligand, an inflammatory molecule with an unexpected neuroregenerative action in multiple sclerosis lesions
Our actual research field is on the molecule a proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL), a member of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) superfamily. Research productivity on APRIL has been possible thanks to the generation of antibodies able to stain this molecule in human tissues. This enabled the discovery of the various biological landscapes in which APRIL plays a role. This is the hallmark of our research, and I used to call this approach “in tissue veritas”. We have been able to describe the pathological role of APRIL in autoimmune and humoral disorders affecting different peripheral organs. We also found APRIL role in tumor development from the B-cell lineages in lymphoid organs. During this research, I discovered a fully new signaling pathway in the TNF superfamily from the Golgi apparatus mediated by one of the APRIL-signaling receptor, the B-cell maturation antigen. All these publications concern peripheral organs. Most recently, we have focused on the central nervous system with the description of an unexpected combined anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective roles for APRIL in neurodegenerative diseases. The latter will be the subject of my talk.
Prof. Maria Leite de Moraes
Université Paris Cité, France
Title: MAIT cells in lung and skin inflammation
Maria LEITE-DE-MORAES is an immunologist at INEM (Institut Necker-Enfants Malades) in Paris. She is a full Research Director (DR1) at CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) and has made seminal discoveries on the ontogeny and function of invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells, as well as their role in experimental and clinical allergic asthma. Her team is currently focusing on another type of innate-like T cells, mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, and their involvement in pathogenic and regulatory immune mechanisms in asthma, cystic fibrosis, and chronic skin inflammation, using both experimental models and pediatric patient cohorts. She has authored over 100 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, with an H-index of 42. ORCID: 0000-0002-2891-2269.
Prof. Julien C. Marie
INSERM, France
Title: Novel effector T cell subsets initiating cancer
Professor Julien C. Marie is director of research at INSERM in France . He is the deputy director of the Cancer Research Center of Lyon.
Dr Marie has been awarded of numerous prizes from academia of science and European institute for his work on immune regulation and cancer immunology.
Prof. Patrick Baeuerle
Cullinan Therapeutics, Inc., USA
Title: T cell engaging antibodies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases
Patrick is a co-founder, Chief Scientific Advisor and Chairman of the SAB of Cullinan Therapeutics, a NASDAQ-listed company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Cullinan currently runs six clinical stage programs for treatment of autoimmune diseases and oncology. As an Executive Partner with the Boston-based VC firm MPM, and being a drug developer and immunologist, Patrick has co-founded nine portfolio companies during the past ten years: Harpoon, TCR², iOmx, Maverick, Cullinan, Crossbow, Aktis, Werewolf and Triptych. Prior to this, Patrick served as Vice President of Research and General Manager of Amgen Research Munich GmbH and as the CSO of Micromet, a US-based biotech company pioneering T cell-engaging antibodies. His industry career started at small molecule-focused Tularik in South San Francisco, a company also acquired by Amgen. Prior to the biotech industry, Patrick was a Professor and Chairman of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical Faculty of Freiburg University, Germany, where he conducted groundbreaking research on transcription factor NF-kappaB. Patrick holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Munich (LMU) and performed his post-doctoral training with Dr. David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research of MIT. Today, he is an Honorary Professor of Immunology at the Medical Faculty of LMU in Munich, Germany, an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and EMBO. He has a Hirsh Index of 144.
Dr. Jonathan Pol
Université de Paris Cité, France
Title: To be confirmed.
Dr. Jonathan Pol (ORCID: 0000000283557562) is a permanent researcher at INSERM within Professor Guido Kroemer’s team at the Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers (Paris, France), where he leads a group dedicated to ImmunoOncology. He obtained his PhD in Molecular and Medical Virology in 2008 (Paris, France) and completed postdoctoral training at McMaster University (Canada) in the laboratories of Drs. Brian Lichty and Yonghong Wan, where he developed oncolytic cancer vaccines.

In 2014, Dr. Pol joined Professor Kroemer’s laboratory to investigate cancer immunogenic cell death, immunosurveillance, and the development of innovative cancer immunotherapies. His group demonstrated that caloric restriction mimetics enhance cancer immunosurveillance and improve chemoimmunotherapy efficacy. More recently, they showed that autoimmune responses can fuel cancer immunosurveillance and protect against tumor development in the biliary tract, a discovery that led to the development of novel immunotherapeutic strategies for cholangiocarcinoma currently pursued within his team.

Dr. Pol has authored over 100 peerreviewed publications, 9 book chapters, and 2 edited volumes (8,000+ citations; hindex = 47, Google Scholar). His work has contributed to 3 patents and the creation of 2 biotechnology companies in Canada and France (Turnstone Biologics and Therafast Bio).

He is an active member of several scientific societies and networks, including the Institut Hors Murs (IHM) of Immunology and Immunopathology of Université Paris Cité (steering committee member), AFEF, EATI, and ECOST. He also serves as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Oncology and Frontiers in Immunology. Dr. Pol obtained his Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) in ImmunoOncology in 2020 and received the “Young Researcher of the Cordeliers Research Center” award in 2015.
Prof. Lazaros I. Sakkas
University of Thessaly, Greece
Title: Sex bias in Systemic Sclerosis
Professor Emeritus, Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Thessaly. I have been trained in internal medicine, and Rheumatology and gained experience in rheumatology in Greece, UK, and USA. I gained hands-on experience and training in molecular biology and Immunology in well-known Centers, at Guy’s/St’Thomas’ Medical and Dental Schools, University of London, UK, and Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

For many years, as Chairman of the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, University General Hospital of Larissa, Larissa, Greece, I was instrumental in teaching medical students, doctors in training, and postgraduate students, and shaping the rheumatology practice in central Greece. My main contribution to research has been genetic and environmental impact on rheumatic diseases, by analysing gene polymorphisms, sequencing of HLA-class-II genes and T cell receptor (TCR) genes in rheumatoid arthritis, introducing HLA-class I genotyping by PCR, sequencing TCR and IL-4 genes in systemic sclerosis, phenotyping B cells and intracellular signal pathways, and highlighting inflammation in osteoarthritis.

I served as Guest Editor in a few books and Journals, Editor of the Hellenic Rheumatology, and then Mediterranean Journal of Rheumatology, Editorial board member in many journals, and reviewer in many journals. I have authored more than 180 English language papers and more than 60 Greek language papers, 17 chapters in books (h-index 51, more than 8900 citations) and I gave lectures in several national and international meetings/congresses.
Prof. Niels Halama
The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Germany
Title: Lipid-laden macrophages as an immuno-metabolic nexus in ovarian cancer: clinical translation of innate immunity
Prof. Niels Halama obtained his MD at the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 2005. He then joined as Resident and Fellow the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT). From 2008 till 2016 he was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Immunology and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. Since 2017 Niels Halama has been attending the Physician for the Clinical Cancer Research Program “Colorectal Cancer.” In 2018 he got his habilitation in internal medicine at the University of Heidelberg and 2022 he obtained the Award of professorship. From 2019 to 2023 he was leading the department of Translational Immunotherapy at the DKFZ. In 2023 he was appointed W3 professor at the HI-TRON (Helmholtz-Institute for Translational Oncology) in Mainz and is Head of the Division “Tumor Immunology and Tumor Immunotherapy”. He is Chairman of the Scientific Management Board (HI-TRON) and member of the Extended Management Board of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCT and UMC).

In addition to running his laboratory, Prof. Niels Halama is Certified clinical investigator in oncology, clinical trials and medical products. 2003 till 2006 he was editor and author of the Section "Endocrinology” and “Neurology", for Medicle (www.medicle.org). He is member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Immunologie (DGfI), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), USA (AACR-sponsored membership), the Cancer Immunology Working Group (CIMM) and the International Cancer Microenvironment Society (ICMS). Prof. Halama is also highly involved in graduate and undergraduate training at the University of Mainz.

His research field is Tumor Immunology, Tumor immunotherapy, Tumor Inflammation, (Immunological) Biomarker Identification, Imaging Technologies, High-Throughput Processing, Colorectal Cancer, Pancreatic cancer, Breast Cancer, Malignant Melanom
Prof. Helmut Salih
University Hospital Tuebingen, Germany
Title: From challenges to Remedies-Bispecific Antibodies in Solid Tumors” or short “Bispecific Antibodies in Solid Tumors
Helmut Salih is Professor and Chair for Translational Immunology within the German Cancer Consortium at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Medical Director of CCU Translational Immunology within the Department of Internal Medicine at University Hospital Tuebingen, Germany. He studies the molecular mechanisms influencing tumor-immune interaction with the aim to develop novel strategies for cancer immunotherapy which then rapidly are then developed until the stage of clinical evaluation. As of 2025, 16 clinical trials evaluating own-developed T cell-activating concepts including several bispecific antibodies have been initiated financed by public funding at the CCU Translational Immunology. Several other trials evaluating (combinations with) peptide vaccines and also novel bispecific CD28 costimulators (BiCos) are upcoming. Helmut Salih also is founder of the spin-off company TWYCE GmbH which develops several of these concepts with 45 Million € financial support of Sprin-D (Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation).
Dr. Benoit Salomon
INSERM, France
Title: Stability and function of Foxp3 Tregs at steady state and in cancer
Benoit Salomon (PhD, DVM) is Research Director at Inserm since 2007; Head of a research team since 2008 at Inserm and Sorbonne University in Paris. He moved recently to the Infinity Institute in Toulouse. He is recognized for his research on Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Treg). showed that Treg play a major role in the control of type 1 diabetes (Immunity 2000), GVHD (J Exp Med 2002, J Clin Invest 2003) and atherosclerosis (Nat Med 2006), that these cells are not anergic in vivo (J Exp Med 2003), that low dose IL-2 administration boosts Treg and suppress type 1 diabetes (Immunity 2008 and J Exp Med 2010), that Tconv have paradoxical protective effects in type 1 diabetes by boosting Treg via TNF (J Clin Invest 2010, J Immunol 2015), that TNF boost Treg via NF-kB (Nat Med 2016, Front Immunol 2019, Eur J Immunol 2020), that TNFR2 expressing Treg control established central nervous system autoimmunity (PNAS 2021) and immunosuppression induced by septic shock (J Infect Dis 2020), that migration and stability of Treg is mTOR dependent (J Immunol 2020) and that neonatal Tregs colonize tissues in adults (Sci Adv 2025). Overall, his research has led to numerous patents and some clinical trials in GVHD and autoimmune diseases. Benoit Salomon has published important findings as first or last author. Among them, 13 papers have been cited more than 100 times, 5 more than 400 times and 1 more than 1700 times (Web of Science, Clarivate). H-index: 45.
Prof. Dirk Jäger
National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, Germany
Title: Highly individualized immunotherapy
Dirk Jäger studied medicine at the Universities in Lübeck and Freiburg and received his MD degree in 1991. He specialized in the field of internal medicine and received his venia legendy at the University of Mainz in 2003. From 1998 to 2000 Dirk propeled his scientific career with a research grant from Cornell Medical Center, New York performing research in the Tumor Immunology Group of Yao Chen and Lloyd Old, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. 2001 to 2003 he was head of the SEREX research group at the Krankenhaus Nordwest in Frankfurt/Main. Thereafter, Dirk headed the Tumor Immunology Laboratory at the Oncology Department, University Hospital Zurich from 2003 to 2005.

Since 2005 Dirk is Managing Director of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, as well as Medical Director of the Medical Oncology Department at the Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD). In addition, he is Head of the Clinical Cooperation Unit “Applied Tumor-Immunity” at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) since 2014. At NCT Heidelberg, he is responsible for all patient care programs and counseling services. His research focusses on immuno-oncology and the development of advanced methods and drugs to characterize and manipulate tumor-host interactions, in particular via modulation of the tumor environment. He could show that combinatorial immunotherapies can elicit clinical responses in otherwise non-responsive tumors. Further, his team engages in developing cellular therapies, bispecific antibodies, and computational tumor immunology.

Dirk has set up strategic alliances with several public institutions as well as with industry. He is involved in over 100 clinical trials, and builds on this foundation to further advance personalized cancer immunotherapy as innovative treatment concepts.