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Keystone Symposia, Banff, Alberta, Canada
February 6 - 12, 2007
B lymphocytes secrete antibody, present antigen and regulate immune responses. The study of B cell differentiation has revealed unexpected plasticity. B cells undergo three unique DNA rearrangement processes: V(D)J recombination, somatic hypermutation, and class switch. The latter two occur in the germinal center, where memory B cells as well as long-lived plasma cells are generated. Much research is focused on the signals that generate these cells as well as their intrinsic properties. With regard to normal and aberrant function in disease, B cells frequently undergo transformation, likely via the DNA modification processes unique to B cells. Normally, B cells are tolerant to self but this can break down, leading to autoimmunity. B cells have proven an excellent target for therapy, but the mechanisms remain unclear. The meeting will highlight these interrelated topics by focusing first on molecular events in development and normal immune responses, then covering how these go awry during transformation, autoimmunity and immunodeficiency, with an emphasis on comparing murine and human systems.
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Organized by:
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Mark J. Shlomchik, Cornelius Murre and Timothy W. Behrens |
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Invited Speakers:
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- Adriano Aguzzi, University Hospital of Zurich
- Frederick Alt, Children's Hospital Boston
- Stephen Anderton, University of Edinburgh
- Timothy Behrens, University of Minnesota
- Yehudit Bergman, Hebrew University Medical School
- Meinrad Busslinger, Research Institute of Molecular Pathology
- Kathryn Calame, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
- Andrew Chan, Genentech, Inc.
- Jason Cyster, University of California, San Francisco
- Riccardo Dalla-Favera, Columbia University
- Anne Durandy, Hopital Necker-Enfants Malade
- Bodo Grimbacher, University of Freiburg
- John Kearney, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Antonio Lanzavecchia, Institute for Research in Biomedicine
- Frances Lund, Trudeau Institute
- Ann Marshak-Rothstein, Boston University School of Medicine
- Chandra Mohan, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
- Cornelis Murre, University of California, San Diego
- David Nemazee, The Scripps Research Institute
- Michael Neuberger, Medical Research Council
- Garry Nolan, Stanford University
- André Nussenzweig, National Institutes of Health
- Michel Nussenzweig, Rockefeller University
- Klaus Rajewsky, CBR Institute for Biomedical Research
- Michael Reth, Max Planck Institute
- David Schatz, Yale University School of Medicine
- Mark Schlissel, University of California, Berkeley
- Ranjan Sen, NIA, National Institutes of Health
- Mark Shlomchik, Yale University School of Medicine
- Harinder Singh, University of Chicago
- Louis Staudt, National Institutes of Health
- Toshitada Takemori, RCAI, Riken
- Alexander Tarakhovsky, Rockefeller University
- Martin Weigert, University of Chicago
- Rolf Zinkernagel, University Hospital Zurich
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Deadline for Abstracts:
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Oct. 6, 2006
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Registration:
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Please see website
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E-mail:
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info@keystonesymposia.org
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