1st International Conference on Basic & Clinical Immunogenomics
3-7 Oct , 2004
Budapest, Hungary

Organiser:

Andras Falus, Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest, Hungary

Report

Summary

The revolutionary development of genomic and bioinformatic approach in immunology prompted us to raise the idea to organize the First Conference on Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics (BCI'2004) held in Budapest 3-7 October 2004 (www.diamond-congress.hu/bci2004), the conference venue was Budapest Congress Center (www.bcc.hu).

The four days Conference was initiated and organised by the Hungarian Society for Immunology (www.mit.hu), with help of a professional congress organiser Company: Diamond Congress Ltd. (www.diamond-congress.hu). The Hungarian Society for Immunology was responsible for scientific content, the Diamond Congress for technical organisation. Based on proposals of international and local board, finally 4 plenary keynote lectures, 3 "late-break-news" announcements, 19 scientific symposia, 99 invited lectures, 197 posters, 3 workshops were scheduled.

The meeting was a great success, initiation of an Immunogenomics meeting was in good time inviting optimal opinion leaders both in immunology, genomics and in bioinformatics. This fact is well supported by the project for the 2nd Conference of Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics, October, 2006, Sopron, Hungary, which is going to be a joint meeting with the 1st International Conference of Immunoinformatics.

The social events: dinner at "Europa" boat with guided Budapest tour, and gala dinner at Hungarian Academy of Science were additional possibilities to strengthen connections between scientists arrived mostly from EU countries. New scientific co-operations were started during the conference, between researchers from old and new member states.

Scientific content of and discussion at the event

Our aims were: to organize the very first Conference on Immunogenomics, to establish an interdisciplinary scientific forum for immunology with a specific approach, to establish a meeting point for academic and industrial researchers involved in selected topics and last but not least to demonstrate the scientific potential of new member countries, to the developed scientific community.

Topics from genomics to the cancer vaccination, from hereditary immunodeficiencies to innovative technologies were discussed during the 19 symposia (see below for detailed programme) in 99 lectures and 3 workshops completed with near 200 posters. Presentations with high scientific value were held by leading academic researchers and representatives of the R&D departments of on edge biotechnological companies as well.
The conference was visited by 434 registered participants from 45 countries of the world, over 85% from Europe. The 21 % of participants were young researchers (under 30) for lower participation fee, supported from the conference budget and partially by the Hungarian Government.

The four keynote lectures were given by four outstanding scientists. EMBO plenary lecture (October 3, 2004) was delivered by Michael Neuberger (Cambridge, UK). He summarized the molecular mechanism of activation induced deamination (AID), its role in somatic mutation, gene conversion and switch recombination of B cells. Moreover the lecture gave an outlook to the global biological relevance of deamination. Targeted DNA deamination is also used in the innate immune system, in this case catalysed by the AID-related enzyme APOBEC3G incorporated into HIV virions.

Adrian Hayday (London, UK) gave a general overview (October 4, 2004) in the recent development of genomic approach in cell mediated immune response and pointed out the newest data on the expression profiles of conventional and non-conventional T cell subsets. Rather unexpected patterns of gene expression allow very clear hypotheses to be developed as to how the immune response is co-ordinated in space and in time.

Martin Zenke (Aachen, Germany) reported (October 5, 2004), that dendritic cells (DC) originate from hematopoietic stem cells and different DC subsets with different phenotype, function, activation state and location are now studied by transcriptional profiling with microarrays. This study uncovered a pivotal role of an inhibitory helix-loop-helix transcription factor Id2 as one of the most prominently increased factors during DC development in vitro. Id2 -/- mice lack Langerhans cells and splenic CD8+ DC-s. High expression of Id2 together with low level of the activating transcription factor E2A suppress B cell development and stimulate DC differentiation.

Gordon Duff (Sheffield, UK) spoke about (October 6, 2004) the cytokine genomics and inflammation. The TNF and IL-1 genotypes influence both disease susceptibility and response to treatment. He described the development on IL-1 receptor antagonist field in many inflammatory diseases. Many of the haplotypes associated with disease are now known to include polymorphisms that change the function of regulatory regions and/or the protein sequence.

The Board of 1st Conference of Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics selected and invited young, talented scientists to give "late-break-news" providing unpublished, striking and relevant results in immunogenomics.

Ena Wang (Bethesda, USA) demonstrated expression profiles characterizing responder and non-responder patients during IL-2 immunotherapy, and showed clear ethnic differences between Caucasian and oriental populations identifying various subsets of genes with immune function differentially expressed between the two populations. Ivo Gut (Paris, France) showed very new mass spectroscopy method for SNP genotyping in the MHC that makes use of the sequence complexity and the multichannel detection capability. Aija Line (Riga, Latvia) applied a serological screening technique to search for tumour antigens and to define further the spectrum of immunogenic proteins in gastric and colon cancer and found new variants of microtubule-associated protein.

On the contrary of the hardness of a pioneering work, the interest for the meeting was very large from the beginning of the organization and this readiness for a second BCI is alive. Our purposes included to establish a new scientific area and based on the intensive correspondence, increasing number of scientific papers and some upcoming scientific books, this initiative was successful.

Topics of BCI'2004 distributed among 19 symposia covered the major fields of basic and clinical immunology with genomic and informatic approach. Due to enthusiastic reactions from participants, with the outstanding support of the excellence of invited speakers we may declare that the BCI'2004 Conference was an enormous success. The relevance and freshness of the lectures, the highly friendly atmosphere indicated a really sparkling conference. It is well confirmed by the immediate claim to organize the 2nd BCI.

The meeting was a living and sparkling scene for knowledge-transfer, since leading excellences of contemporary immunology with most significant, opinion-leader were well represented. The exchange of ideas between several scientific areas (immunology, genomics, bioinformatics) occurred with promising initiatives for future co-operations.

Our initiative, the 1st Immunogenomics Conference attracted many multinational on-edge biotechnology/pharmaceutical/ bioinformatic companies. This raised further interaction providing their latest R&D activities, products and publications during the meeting. Scientific lectures from company R&D, technology and educational workshops were inserted into the traditional conference structure to ensure the practical dimension of the relevant research areas.

One of the major priorities of European Commission, including hot topics such as reverse vaccinology, oncogenomics, infectology/epidemiology, allergy-genomics received a significant attention. In the Opening Ceremony Dr. Bernard Mulligan, Directorate General for Research , Unit F-4 (Fundamental Genomics) at European Commission, gave a talk on the further plans including the final part of FP6 and about upcoming FP7.

Last, but not least, young scientists giving lectures and exhibiting posters represented a significant part (27 talks and 97 posters) among the participants, as well.

There are negotiations about the venue of the 2nd BCI meeting (likely in October of 2006), it will be surely organized in 2006. The acceptance of the conference location in Hungary again by participants was very high.

There are plans to establish EU grants in some fields of immunology and molecular biology for European immunologists and bioinformaticists. The basic aspects of collaborations has been determined during the 1st Conference of Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics, 3-7 October, 2004, Budapest, Hungary.

There was a surprisingly high interest for the 1st Conference of Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics in the media. High reputation international media, with high visibility (such as CNN, BBC) were present and gave interviews with famous invited lecturers and other participants. The media interest was prepared by two press conferences in May and also just before the meeting in September 2004. Both electronic and printed media in Hungary paid a significant attention. More than thirty interviews appeared in various journals and more than 15 interviews were on air in broadcasting and televisions. (details in a separate chart) The following scientific journals gave information on the meeting: Nature, Trends in Immunology, Current Opinion of Immunology, Transplantation Journal, Journal of Immunology. The Conference Proceedings were published in a Blackwell Journal (Tissue Antigens), a review article as a meeting report with the detailed comments of chairpersons is due in Immunology Letters. The web page of 1st Conference of Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics was visited by more than 16 000 attendants. Based on web search, over 300 scientific and calendar web pages gave information on the BCI'2004 Conference. The scientific value of the meeting was nicely completed with the suitable way of knowledge distribution, the congress homepage lives further, providing forum for permanent change of ideas and collaborative activities. Moreover, Immunology Letters will edit a Meeting report very soon prepared by the symposium chairpersons and edited by Andras Falus, the Chairman of 1st BCI. In addition, John Wiley & Sons Book Editing Company will publish a book, based on the Conference lectures, entitled by Immunogenomics and Disease in 2005.


Assessment of the results and impact of the event on the future direction of the field

As mentioned, negotiations on the organization of the future BCI meetings is largely widened by the negotiations with Professor Vladimir Brusic, Vice-president of International Society of Immunomics. The issue, to make a world-wide scientific and conference programme has been discussed and accepted by the board of The International Immunomics Society (IIMMS) (http://research.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/IIMMS/), representing over 90 countries form all continents of the world. The IIMMS board decided to change the name of their symposia from "immunoinformatics" to "immunomics" and will hold next Immunomics meeting in Hungary in 2006 jointly with the 2nd Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics conference. They accepted Andras Falus as an IIMMS council member and an editor to the Immunome Research journal (the IIMMS journal). The next 2nd International Immunoinformatics Symposium meeting will be in Boston on March 7-9, 2005, discussing the detailed programme of the joint meeting. These facts and the presence of Immunogenomics Conference in 382 webpages strongly suggest the international recognition of this new initiative.

The proposal of John Wiley & Sons Book Editing Company to publish a book entitled by Immunogenomics and Disease in 2005 (editor: Andras Falus, Budapest) suggests a more significant international dissemination of the immunogenomics. The authors received and accepted the invitations, the book presumably comes by the second half of 2005.

Finally, based on reports from invited speakers and other participants of 1st Conference of Basic and Clinical Immunogenomics, 3-7 October, 2004, Budapest, Hungary, numerous new EU co-operations were established during the meeting.

Final programme for the meeting

Sunday, October 3, 2004
Lecture Hall Pátria
17.30 Opening ceremony Prof. András Falus, Congress Chair,
Prof. Julia Szekeres, President of Hungarian Society for Immunology
Prof. Sylvester E. Vizi, President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Dr. Mihály Kökény, Minister of Health, Social and Family Affairs
Dr. László Fésüs, Chairman of Hungarian Genomic Consortium for Health
18.45 EU lecture Dr. Bernard Mulligan, European Commission, Directorate General for Research, Functional genomics in EU framework programmes
EMBO Plenary lecture: Michael Neuberger (Cambridge, UK) DNA deamination in adaptive and innate immunity

Monday, October 4, 2004
Lecture Hall Pátria
9.00-10.00 Plenary keynote lecture: Adrian Hayday (London, UK) Genomics; gene expression; and a revised view of cellular immunology
10.00-10.15 Late-break-news: Ena-Wang (Bethesda, USA)
10.30-13.30 Symposium 1: Genomics of antigen receptors and co-receptors
A. Neil Barclay (Oxford, UK) Membrane proteins with immunoglobulin-like domains - a master superfamily of interaction molecules
Stanley Nathenson (Bronx, USA) From Crystal to Cell, Analysis of the Molecular Basis of T-Cell Co-stimulation
Paolo Casali (Irvine, USA) Immunoglobulin somatic hypermutation and class switch DNA recombination in human B cells
Michael Taussig (Cambridge, UK) Autoantibodies: structures and array-based detection
George Tsokos (Silver Spring, USA): SLE T cells: Aberrant cell signaling and gene transcription: New ideas for diagnosis and treatment


Lecture Hall Bartók
10.30- 13.30 Symposium 11: Hereditary immunodeficiencies
László Maródi (Debrecen, Hungary) Introduction
Jean-Laurent Casanova (Paris, France) The human model: a genetic dissection of immunity to infection in natural conditions
Janos Sumegi (Cincinnati, USA) Mutational spectrum of the perforin gene and functional analysis of missense, disease-causing mutations in patients with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis
Anne Durandy (Paris, France) What do hyper-IgM syndromes teach us about antibody maturation?
Mauno Vihinen (Tampere, Finland) Immunodeficiencies - from genotype to phenotype
Jacek Michalkiewicz (Warsaw, Poland) Phenotypical and functional characteristics of lymphocytes of patients with Nijmegen breakage syndrome and ataxia telangiectasia

Lecture Hall Lehár
10.30- 13.30 Symposium 16: Genomics of reproductive immunology
Gerard Chaouat (Paris, France) PCR and microarrays to study implantation in mice and human
Philippe Le Bouteiller (Toulouse, France) Human cytomegalovirus-host HLA-G interactions
Andras Dinnyes, Agnes Smolenszky (Godollo, Hungary) Novel transgenic and knock-out laboratory animal models for immunological and implantation research: the application of nuclear replacement (cloning) technology
Ole Christianssen (Copenhagen, Denmark) Interactions between HLA-related and non-related immunogenetic determinants in recurrent pregnancy loss
Julia Szekeres (Pecs, Hungary) Genomic basis of progesterone- dependent immunomodulation

Lecture Hall Liszt
10.30 Beckman Coulter Workshop
GenomeLabTM: Innovate, simplify and automate genetic analysis
Removing bottlenecks for SNP Mining and Multiplex Primer Design: Chromosome Browser and Autoprimer.com two new tools for pooling primers from public and private databases
SNP typing with multiplex PCR based Methods comparison of Capillary Electrophoresis methods on the CEQ. and Tag-array technology using the SNPstream. Genotyping System in a central facility
The use of SNP Stream. on Degraded DNA getting 48 SNPs from a minimum of sample
Visualizing genotypic and phenotypic information for clinical and statistical patient management a case study using lymphoproliferative and common genetic disorders
Multiplex Mutation Genotyping for Human Diseases. Breast cancer and Familial Mediterranean fever using SNP on the CEQ CapillarySequencer
Identification of disease-susceptible SNP for Multiplex Analysis: Screening Factor V R506Q (Leiden) Mutations
The workshop is organised and presented Dr. Jim Thorn Senior Application scientist Beckman-Coulter UK Denis Lobidel European product Manager Beckman Coulter France Dr Zhiminng Jiang Research and Development Centre Beckman Coulter US

Lecture Hall Pátria
15.00-18.00 Symposium 4: Genomics of dendritic cells and macrophages Supported by ESF (European Science Foundation)
Timothy Ravasi (Brisbane, Australia) Molecular genetics of macrophage activation
Peter Tontonoz (UCLA, USA) LXR Signaling Pathways in Lipid Metabolism and Inflammation
László Nagy (Debrecen, Hungary) Dissecting the roles of nuclear hormone receptor in the differentiation and function of professional antigen presenting cells
Éva Rajnavölgyi (Debrecen, Hungary) Genomic and functional differences of dendritic cell subsets: Differentiation, activation or flexibility?
Paola Ricciardi-Castagnoli (Milano, Italy) Transcriptional profiling of dendritic cells in response to pathogens
Pierre Guermonprez (Paris, France): ER-phagosome fusion defines an MHC class I cross-presentation compartment in dendritic cells.

Lecture Hall Bartók
15.00-18.00 Symposium 19: Bioinformatics and genome analysis in immune research Supported by Agilent Technologies
Irun Cohen (Rehovot, Israel) Antigen micro-arrays: A tool for the study of immune complexity
Paul Coussens (East Lansing, USA) Development of gene expression signatures for chronic infectious diseases, a bovine model
Sandor Pongor (Trieste, Italy) Knowledge representation in genome research
David Uhlinger (Raritan, USA) Transcriptional profiling and proteomic analysis of activated human monocytes
Duncan Hall (London, UK) Analysis of Immunological Gene Expression Data from DNA Microarrays

Lecture Hall Lehár
15.00-18.00 Symposium 9: Genetic regulation of apoptosis in immune response Supported by Biomedica
Erno Duda (Szeged, Hungary) Evolution of the TNF/TNF receptor families of proteins
Thomi Brunner (Bern, Swizerland) Posttranscriptional control of the apoptosis-inducing Fas (CD95) ligand
Vladimir Brusic (Singapore): Possible role of viral antigen recognition in T-cell repertoire selection processes
Zsuzsa Szondy (Debrecen, Hungary) Tissue transglutaminase is required for proper phagocytosis of apoptotic cells
Csaba Dul (Budapest, Hungary) Apoptosis detection: perspectives, new markers and methods

Lecture Hall Liszt
15.00-18.00 Symposium 15: Genomics of pulmonary diseases Supported by Beckman-Coulter
Patrick Holt (Perth, Australia) Gene expression patterns in human atopic disease
Laszlo Takacs (Paris, France) Parallel Biology: a systematic approach to drug target and biomarker discovery for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Maurizio Luisetti (Pavia, Italy): Recent Advances in Genetic Epidemiology of Alpha1-antitrypsin Defiency
Andreas Spittler (Vienna, Austria): Sepsis Immunology, Flow Cytometry and Clinical Implications
Mahavir Singh (Braunschweig, Germany) Tuberculosis: From genomics to molecular diagnosis

Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Lecture Hall Pátria
9.00-10.00 Plenary keynote lecture: Martin Zenke (Aachen, Germany): Genomics and dendritic cell biology
10.00-10.15 Late-break-news: Ivo Gut (Paris, France)
10.30-13.30 Symposium 8: Onco-immunogenomics
Supported by Agilent Technologies and EACR (European Association of Cancer Research)
Anne-Lise Borresen-Dale (Oslo, Norway) Whole genome views of cancer
Francesco Marincola (Bethesda, USA) The enigma of tumor immune responsiveness: a high-throughput genomics question?
Michael I Nishimura (Chicago, USA) The Influence of T Cell Receptor Genes on Tumor Cell Recognition
Giorgio Parmiani (Milano, Italy) Immune response in Heat Shock Proteins vaccinated patients
Ondrej Hrusak (Prague, Czech Republic) Multiparametric flow cytometry is an ideal tool for diagnostic assessment of the top genes in acute leukemia

Lecture Hall Bartók
10.30-13.30 Symposium 7: Complement genomics Supported by Qiagen
Moh Daha (Leiden, The Netherlands) Role of Anti Complement C1q Antibodies in the Pathogenesis of Lupus Nephritis
Peter Schneider (Mainz, Germany) The structural and functional role of the complement C4 genes: a model for gene evolution driven by disease association and protection?
C. Yung Yu (Columbus, USA) Complex diversities of complement C4 and RP-C4-CYP21-TNX (RCCX) modules in Caucasians, Africans, Chinese and Indians
George Fust (Budapest, Hungary) Survival disadvantages of some alleles in central region of MHC
Peter Schüßler (Cologne, Germany) Sensitive and Specific Microarray Expression Analysis of Entire Genomes using 70mer Probes

Lecture Hall Lehár
10.30-13.30 Symposium 6: Signalling, genomics of adapter proteins and transcription factors in immune response
Cox Terhorst (Boston, USA) Interactions between the SLAM- and SAP-gene families in response to microbial infections
Doreen Cantrell (Dundee, UK) Regulation and Function of Serine Kinases in T lymphocytes
Imre Kacskovics (Budapest, Hungary) Cloning of the gene encoding the bovine neonatal Fc receptor and analysis its transcriptional regulation
Gabriella Sarmay (Budapest, Hungary) Expression and function of Gab family adaptor proteins in lymphocytes
Enrique Saez (San Diego, USA): Identification of novel modulators of NFkB signaling
Friedhelm Diel (Fulda, Germany): Distinct influences of histamine on signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) in sensitized human T helper (Th) lymphocytes ex vivo

Lecture Hall Liszt
15.00-18.00 IBM Workshop Bioinformatics Based Medicine
Sandor Pongor International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Trieste University, Italy, Szeged Biological Centre, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary User profiles and educational trends in bioinformatics
Michael Hehenberger Solutions Executive, Department of Information Based Medicine, IBM, Life Sciences, US Information Based Medicine
Vladimir Brusic Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore International Immunomics Society Biological data warehousing and data mining
Werner Müller Experimental Immunology GBF mbH, Braunschweig, Germany Sequence driven bioinformatics, automatic generation of a clean, comprehensive database for immune repertoire analysis
Khaja Zafarullah WW Senior Sales Specialist IBM, Life Sciences, US Clinical Genomic Solution

Lecture Hall Pátria
15.00-18.00 Symposium 3: Transplantation genomics-MHC gene variety
John Trowsdale (Cambridge, UK) Genetic and functional interactions between polymorphic MHC class I proteins and KIR receptors
Stephan Beck (Cambridge, UK) Haplotypes revisited: Genetic and epigenetic variation of the MHC
Martin Flajnik (Baltimore, USA) Comparative genomics of the MHC
Gyozo Petranyi (Budapest, Hungary) Molecular basis of "self and non-self" discrimination and its importance in transplantation genomics
Gerd Schmitz (Regensburg, Germany): Homozygosity for the 168His variant of the minor histocompatibility antigen HA-1 is associated with reduced risk of primary Sjögren's syndrome

Lecture Hall Bartók
15.00-18.00 Symposium 10: Infection and inflammation genomics
Matyas Sandor (Madison, USA) Innate and cognate mycobacterial granuloma: a genomic approach
Tom Wynn (Bethesda, USA) Gene expression profiling in diseased tissues reveals divergent roles for Th1 and Th2 responses in tissue repair
Kevin Becker (Baltimore, USA) Comparative Immunogenomics of Autoimmune and Inflammatory disorders
Milan Buc (Bratislava, Slovak Republic) Tuberculosis as a complication of biological anti-TNF therapy
Marie Lipoldova (Prague, Czech Republic) Immunogenetics of Leishmania major infection in mice: multiple loci and heterogeneity of gene effects
Charles R Mackay (Sydney, Australia): The immune cell transcriptome: identifying and validating new targets for inflammatory diseases

Lecture Hall Lehár
15.00-18.00 Symposium 18: Chemical genomics, glycoimmunology and metabolomics in immune response Supported by Comgenex
Hans-J. Gabius (Munich, Germany) The emerging functionality of the sugar code: galectins as potent effectors in inflammation and autoimmunity
Edit Buzas (Budapest, Hungary): Glyco-immunogenomics: past, present, future
András Falus (Budapest, Hungary): Histamine genomics; the metabolomics-genomics-fenomics interface
Ferenc Darvas (Budapest-SanFrancisco, Hungary-USA): Chemical Genomics: Bridging the gap between novel targets
Susan Hollan (Budapest, Hungary): Phenotypical differences in germ-line identical enzyme deficiency
Yasumaru Hatanaka (Toyama, Japan): Chemical gateway for immunogenomics: application of multifunctional photoprobes


Lecture Hall Liszt
15.00 Applied Biosystems Workshop
New enabling tools for Human Genome science
Raimo Tanzi, Applied Biosystems Introduction to Integrated Science: a comprehensive set of tools and information to study the Human Genome
Roland Wicki Gene expression reaches a new level: high and low density arrays integrating the most accurate genome information and the most reliable quantitation technology
Raimo Tanzi Analysis of Genome Variation, Integrated-Science solutions for SNP genotyping and resequencing the Human Genome

Wednesday, October 6, 2004
Lecture Hall Pátria
9.00-10.00 Plenary keynote lecture: Gordon W. Duff (Sheffield, UK) Cytokine genomics and disease risk
10.00-10.15 Late-break-news: Francisco Lozano (Barcelona, Spain)
10.30- 13.30 Symposium 14: Allergy genomics Supported by AstraZeneca
Juha Kere (Stockholm, Sweden) Second-generation candidate genes for asthma and allergy
Kenji Izuhara (Saga, Japan) Application of functional genomics to bronchial asthma
Csaba Szalai (Budapest, Hungary) Genomic investigation of asthma in human and animal models
Matthias Wjst (Munich, Germany) Moving on in allergy genetics: Epigenetic networking
Robin Thurmond (San Diego, USA) The Role of the Histamine H4 Receptor in Allergy and Inflammation

Lecture Hall Bartók
10.30- 13.30 Symposium 17: Genomic strategies of vaccination Supported by Intercell
Laszlo Radvanyi (Toronto, Canada) Discovery and Validation of New Vaccine Targets for Cancer: Combining the Power of Genomics, Bioinformatics and Immunology
Vega Masignani (Siena, Italy) Reverse Vaccinology: Using genome information to develop new vaccine
Gustav Gaudernack (Oslo, Norway) Clinical trials of peptide based vaccines targeting telomerase
Alexander von Gabain (Vienna, Austria) Learning from the human immune system - molecular design of vaccines
Peter Nemeth (Pecs, Hungary) Fine epitope mapping of circulating - physiological and pathological - autoantibodies using peptide libraries expressed by filamentous and lambda phages

Lecture Hall Liszt
10.30 BioRad Workshop
Contemporary technologies for gene expression studies
Daniela Badea, Bio-Rad Welcome and Introduction
Pavel Suchan Bio-Rad Tools for Fuctional Genomics
Jakub Razga Bio-Plex Suspension Array System
Discussion & product demonstration

Lecture Hall Pátria
15.00-18.00 Symposium 12: Autoimmune genomics Supported by ESF (European Science Foundation)
Tibor Glant (Chicago, USA) Genetics of autoimmune murine models of rheumatoid arthritis
Steffen Gay (Zurich, Switzerland) Novel pathways of synovial activation in rheumatoid arthritis detected by gene transfer
Olle Kämpe (Uppsala, Sweden) APECED - a model for autoimmunity of mice and men
Imre Semsei (Debrecen, Hungary) Autoimmunity; a mutational approach of La autoantigen studies in Sjögren's syndrome
Josef Smolen (Vienna, Austria) Pathogenetic aspects of RA - Lessons from therapeutic approaches

Lecture Hall Bartók
15.00-18.00 Symposium 5: Genomic approaches in innate immunity and heat shock proteins Supported by Qiagen
Peter Garred (Copenhagen, Denmark) Involution of Mannose-Binding Lectin - Pros and Cons
Cliona O'Farrelly (Dublin, Ireland) In Silico Cloning of TLR Components and New Antimicrobial Peptides
Zoltán Prohászka (Budapest, Hungary) Autoimmunity against Heat Shock Proteins: Complex regulation by genomic and environmental factors
Jozsef Prechl (Budapest, Hungary) Modulation of the immune response by complement receptor targeted recombinant antibodies
Martin Bilej (Prague, Czech Republic) Functional analogy of vertebrate and invertebrate cytokine-like molecules without structural homology
Bettina Hädrich (Hilden, Germany) Genome-wide siRNA: Development of an Automated, High Throughput siRNA Design and Synthesis Platform

Thursday, October 7, 2004
Lecture Hall Lehár
9.00 Symposium 13: Dermatogenomics Supported by Bio-Rad
Bernhard Homey (Düsseldorf, Germany) Chemokines: From Inflammation to Metastasis
Marta Szell (Szeged, Hungary) Large scale gene expression studies for psoriasis susceptibility
Jozsef Timar (Budapest, Hungary) Gene-expression profile of interferon-sensititivity in human melanoma
Jonathan Barker (London, UK) Phenotypic and therapeutic variation in psoriasis

Lecture Hall Liszt
9.00 Symposium 2: Immuno-cellomics Supported by Promega
Ivan Lefkovits (Basel, Switzerland) Quantitative proteomics of lymphocytes
Georgyi V. Los (Madison, USA) Tethering of functional groups to the proteins in living cells
Shi-Jiang Lu (stem) (Chicago,USA) Hematopoietic precursors derived from primate embryonic stem cells exhibit embryonic gene expression patterns
Michael Pfaffl (Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany) LPS effects on the mRNA expression of inflammatory factors in the mammary gland: Quantitative transcriptomics in various cell types using real-time RT-PCR
Robert Jack (Greifswald, Germany) RNA expression analysis of the role of human monocytes in inflammation