Adaptive Immune Recognition in InfectiousDisease and Cancer

International Workshop
20 - 24 April 2026

Understanding how the immune system exerts its protective function against pathogens such as viruses and bacteria is fundamentally important for designing more rapid and targeted interventions. The need for accelerated development of preventative and therapeutic interventions was recently highlighted by the COVID pandemic and other epidemiological threats, whose frequency will increase as the human population grows. An impressive application of such understanding, namely stimulating the response of the immune system against cancer, has already become the pillar of anti-cancer immuno-therapies, which in the last few years have revolutionised cancer care. However, developing theoretical models that can guide immunological research by generating mechanistic insights into the behavior of the immune system is an extremely difficult challenge due to the different scales of immunological regulation interacting and feeding back into each other. Motivated by this need and challenge, as well as by the potential to bring about novel and critically important insights, this workshop on Adaptive immune recognition in infectious disease and cancer (AIMMREC) has been organised.

The workshop aims to advance our understanding of how adaptive immune recognition of infections and cancer, at the molecular level, are influenced by within-host factors and their interplay with the population scale. We do so by bringing together scientists working on the biophysics of adaptive immunity to infection and cancer, with theoretical, computational, or experimental backgrounds to foster cross-disciplinary approaches to solving problems in viral-immune and cancer-immune co-evolution.

Topics include

  • T Cell recognition
  • Immune regulation
  • Immune memory
  • Viral dynamics
  • Cancer-immune co-evolution
  • Immune repertoires
  • Systems immunology
  • Mathematical and statistical modelling
  • Infectious disease
  • Immuno-dominance
  • Immune epitope prediction

Confirmed invited speakers

Phil Bradley (US)
Veit R. Buchholz (DE)
Dirk H. Busch (DE)
Benny Chain (UK)
Rob de Boer (NL)
Frederk Graw (DE)
Tomer Hertz (IL)
Thomas Höfer (DE)
Johannes Huppa (DE)
Grant Lythe (UK)
Michael Meyer-Hermann (DE)
Anastasia Minervina (US)
Thierry Mora (FR)
Thorsten Prüstel (US)
Eve Richardson (US)
Benedict Seddon (UK)
Andrew Sewell (UK)
Paul Thomas (US)
Andreas Tiffeau-Meyer (UK)
Rajat Varma (US)
Dominik Wodarz (US)
Jonathan Yewdell (US)
Luis Zapata Ortiz (UK)
Veronika Zartnitsyna (US)

 

Scientific Coordinators

Carmen Molina-París
(Los Alamos, US)

Barbara Bravi
(London, UK)

Martin Meier-Schellersheim
(Bethesda, US)

Organisation

Katja Egenolf

(MPIPKS Dresden)

Application

Applications for this international workshop are now closed. The application deadline was 31st December 2025. The number of attendees is limited.

The registration fee for the international workshop is 200 Euro and should be paid by all participants.

Costs for accommodation and meals will be covered by the Max Planck Institute.

Scientific Program

Program structure:

Sunday, 19th April - recommended arrival

Monday, 20th April - 9 am program start

Friday, 24th April - evening program closure 

Saturday, 25th April - departure

Weiterlesen...

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