3. Uluslararası Moleküler İmmünoloji ve İmmünogenetik Kongresi

The 3rd International Molecular Immunology & Immunogenetics Congress (MIMIC-III) has been successfully held in Antalya during 27-30 April 2016. Recent trends and emerging topics on molecular and applied immunology as well as immunogenetics has been discussed in various sessions during the meeting.

MIMIC congresses put special effort to connect acclaimed international scientists and immunologists with new faculty and young researchers in a friendly and relaxed environment, aiming to foster exchange of ideas along with facilitating collaborations. As a reflection of this, MIMIC-III was able to attract a total of 179 scientists from 12 different countries (Algeria, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Japan, Poland, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, UK and USA). The 4-day program included 14 invited talks, 20 selected oral abstracts and 100 poster presentations.

On April 27^th, the congress kicked off with opening speeches by TSI president Günnur Deniz and Congress President Barbaros Oral, followed by an inspiring talk on “Interpersonal Communication” by Cemal Cıngı of Eskişehir Osmangazi University.

The opening ceremony was finalized by the plenary lecture on “Inducing and Breaking of Allergen Specific Tolerance” by Mübeccel Akdiş of the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research.

The second day of the congress included sessions on novel discoveries in the innate immune system, impact of inflammation on diseases, emerging issues in adaptive immune system, and the regulatory cells of immune system with invited talks by Attila Mocsai, Gerhard Wingender, Duygu Sağ, Sven Brandau, Luigi Abelli, Batu Erman, Günnur Deniz and Ayça Sayı Yazgan.

The General Assembly of the Turkish Society of Immunology was held during this day of the congress and elections for the new board of the society that is to serve for the next three years was carried out.

The newly elected board of TSI is as follows:

President: Günnur Deniz
Vice President: Güher Saruhan Direskeneli
President-elect: Barbaros Oral
General Secretary: Ayça Sayı Yazgan
Treasurer: Arzu Aral
Members: İhsan Gürsel, Tolga Sütlü

The third day of the congress included sessions on tumor immunology and molecular markers, tumor immunotherapy, emerging molecular and cellular therapies in immunodeficiencies and new trends in immunity to infections with invited talks by Luca Casetta, Serkan Göktuna, Suhendan Ekmekçioğlu, Tolga Sütlü, İhsan Gürsel, Talal Chatila, İsmail Reisli, Ken Ishii and Cevayir Çoban along with a World Immunology Day Special Lecture on “Regulation of Chronicity in Diseases” by Cezmi Akdiş of the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research.

The final day of the congress included sessions on transplantation immunology and targets in autoimmune/autoinflammatory diseases with invited talks by Robert Lechler, Giovanna Lombardi, Piotr Trzonkowski, Haner Direskeneli and Ahmet Gül.

Awards for young scientists were handed out during the World Immunology Day Party. Banu Bayyurt of Bilkent Univeristy; Ceren Çıracı of Istanbul Technical University and Esen Doğan of Sabancı University received the Şefik Alkan Poster Awards. Ismail Ogulur of Marmara University was awarded the Işıl Barlan Prize for Research in Immunodeficiencies.

MIMIC-III has again proven to be an excellent opportunity to explore new horizons in research and develop new ideas to pressing and unresolved issues in immunology. TSI proudly emphasizes that the organizing committee has made special efforts to support early stage scientists/researchers via grants and awards covering registration, accommodation and part of travel expenses and is committed to do so in the forthcoming MIMIC congresses. We gratefully acknowledge the 10.000 Euro support by the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS) and the European Journal of Immunology (EJI) that play a major role in our efforts to promote the attendance of young immunologists to this meeting.

We thank all the scientists attending the congress for making this event a vibrant environment where cutting-edge research on immunology was discussed. We would also like to once again thank our sponsors for their contributions to support this meeting.