Thank you to all participants of the 19th International Conference on Lymphatic Tissues and Germinal Centres in Immune Reactions (GCC) conference.
We are pleased to announce the 19th Germinal Centre Conference, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the GCC conference series.
The germinal centre response has attracted over the past 50 years generations of immunologists, mathematicians, molecular biologists and geneticists. Yet, our understanding of how the germinal centre response is initiated, sustained, and terminated remains surprisingly limited. This information is crucial to understand how immunological memory is established and sustained, how human diseases of germinal centre origin develop, and to design more potent and effective vaccines against lethal pathogens.
The conference will address topics related to the identification and functional dissection of novel molecular determinants controlling the dynamics of B and T cells within germinal centre, B cell selection as well as the establishment and persistence of long-lived memory B cells and plasma cells.
In vivo studies in preclinical models will be combined to investigations on human B cell subsets from healthy individuals as well as from patients affected by autoimmune disorders, immune deficiencies and B cell malignancies of germinal centre origin, to decipher the molecular origin of these diseases. A particular attention will be given to studies aiming to improve vaccine design through a modulation of the germinal centre response.
The ultimate goal of the conference is to integrate molecular, cellular (including single cell analyses) and systems-biology studies to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the key determinants that control the germinal centre response, the homeostasis of memory B cells, and the mechanisms that eventually lead to germinal centre dysfunction.
Stefano Casola - IFOM, Milan, IT
Sidonia Fagarasan - IMS Riken, Yokohama, JP
Marie Kosco-Vilbois - Novimmune SA, Geneva, CH
Claudia Berek - DRFZ, Berlin, DE
Frans Kroese - UMCG University of Groningen, DE
Michael Meyer-Hermann - Helmholtz Centre, Braunschweig, DE
Kai-Michael Toellner - University of Birmingham, UK
Mats Bemark - University of Gothenburg, SE
