International Conference on Innate Immunity July 20-21, 2015 Barcelona, Spain

Wolfgang Leitner is a programofficer ,chief, innate immunity AND vaccine adjuvants section in NIAID,NIH,USA.His recent publications are on following: 1. Gene gun immunization to combat malaria. 2. Improving DNA vaccines against malaria: could immunization by gene gun be the answer? 3. Is arthropod saliva the achilles' heel of vector-borne diseases? He has total of 74 publications.

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Professor Bernhagen studied Biochemistry and Immunology at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and at Queen Mary College, London, UK. He performed a sandwich PhD thesis at the University of Tübingen and at the Picower Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA, and was trained as a postdoc at the Picower. Professor Bernhagen currently is a Full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and is the Chair and Director of the homonymous institute. His main research interest has been on cytokines, chemokines and their role in inflammation, with a focus on MIF and the biochemical and structural features and mechanisms of such inflammatory mediators. He also studies the COP9 signalosome. Studied disease models encompass rodent model of atherosclerosis, sepsis, liver and kidney disease as well as colitis and colorectal cancer. Professor Bernhagen has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed papers in these areas, several of them published in leading journals such as Nature, Nature Medicine, or PNAS. He has serves on the editorial board of several journals and serves on several review committees for extramural funding and various fellowship organizations.

Cytokines, chemokines and their role in inflammation, with a focus on MIF and the biochemical and structural features and mechanisms of such inflammatory mediators

Ivo Gut took on the direction of CNAG in January 2010. He leads the Applied Genomics group and is the Team Leader of the Biomedical Genomics team. He qualified in Chemistry at the University of Basel in 1985 and obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the same university in 1990. Then he joined the research group of Prof. Irene Kochevar at Harvard Medical School as a research fellow. Between 1993 and 1996 he was research fellow with Dr. Stephan Beck at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. Later, at the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics he led a group in the Department for Vertebrate Genomics of Prof. Hans Lehrach. In the 11 years before joining the CNAG he worked at the Centre National de Génotypage of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique in Evry, France, first as Head of Technology Development and later as Associate Director under Prof. Mark Lathrop. His research interests are high-throughput nucleic acid analysis, sequencing, SNP genotyping, genomics, genetics, nucleic acid and protein analysis methods (molecular biological techniques and chemical modification), implementation of methods, automation and analysis. He is the author of over 160 research papers, inventor of 24 patents and patent applications, founder of 4 biotech companies (Genom Analytik GmbH, Biopsytec GmbH and Epigenomics AG, Integragen SA). He is the coordinator of the 12M€ EU FP7-funded Integrated Project READNA on DNA sequencing technology development.

Dr. Griffith Parks is the UCF College of Medicine’s new Director for the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences. He comes to UCF from the Wake Forest School of Medicine, where he is currently Professor and Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and founding Director of the WFU Vaccine Center. He also serves in leadership positions with the WFU Cancer Center and the Center for Comparative Medicine. Dr. Parks’ research focuses on innate immune responses to negative strand RNA viruses, a diverse group of medically important pathogens that include the influenza, measles virus, parainfluenza virus, RSV and Ebola virus. His research program has had more than 20 years of uninterrupted funding from the National Institutes of Health. His current research projects include complement interactions with parainfluenza virus and the bioterrorism agent Nipah virus, and the suppression of innate immunity to influenza virus during pregnancy. His research interests also include developing novel virus-based vectors as vaccines and the targeted killing of tumor cells. He is a member of the editorial board for both Virology and The Journal of Virology. In his new role at UCF, Dr. Parks will lead the Burnett School and serve as program director for the interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program. He will work to maximize research initiatives to implement the medical school’s strategic plan. He said he was “honored to accept the Burnett School director’s position,” calling it “a terrific opportunity to lead a vibrant community focused on educating the next generation of scientists and in tackling the most important research problems in cancer, and infectious, cardiovascular and neurological diseases.” Dr. Parks earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was an American Cancer Society Fellow at Northwestern University. He said he is excited about the growing collaboration between the Burnett School and scientific institutes, centers and hospitals in the community. “These partnerships represent outstanding opportunities for innovation in both research and education,” he said. Dr. Parks will start at the College of Medicine in August.

Huan Chen Wang is a Senior Scientist and the intellectual driving force in the group of the Inositol Signaling Section at NIEHS, He conducts basic research into studying the roles of inositol-derivatives as regulators of cellular and organismal homeostasis. He has determined the first inositol pyrophosphate kinase (PPIP5K2) structure and proposed a catalysis mechanism. He also described a substrate capture site in this kinase. Moreover, He solved the first IP6K structures. During his research career, he was lead author on over 16 peer-reviewed publications, and additionally co-authored 23 publications and reviews.

Inositol Signaling

Vladimir Litvak, Assistant Professor at UMMS, has studied immunology, metabolism and systems biology for 15+years and published his research papers in high-profile peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Nature Immunology, Nature Cell Biology and Molecular Cell. He is an editor for the Immunome Research Journal. He is a Member of the Educational Resource Cluster at UMass Center for Microbiome Research. He also serves on the review committee for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM/NIH).

Metabolism and systems biology

Tobias Kollmann is an assistant professor of The University of British Columbia

Our laboratory is developing a vaccine system that with only one immunization given at birth will protect from infectious diseases, as well as from asthma and allergies. Our laboratory uses state-of-the-art lab technology and bioinformatic approaches to get the most information out of the smallest samples. We are systematically dissecting the molecular mechanisms important in the human neonatal and infant response to infection or vaccination important for global health. Based on that knowledge, we are identifying immune modulators or vaccine adjuvants that help protect newborns from disease, and aid in their immune response to vaccines. This work is done in close collaboration with several large national and international research groups.

Professor Thiel has characterized proteins within the innate immune system for 20+ years, during which time he has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He was thus the first to find and describe some of the proteins of the human complement system. He serves as co-editor of Scandinavian Society of immunology. Dr. Thiel is a member of the board of the Danish Research Council, Medical Sciences.

Proteins within the innate immune system

Dr. Marco Sgarbanti has studied molecular virus-host interaction for 15 years as deducible by hispeer-reviewed publications. As researcher and principal investigator (PI), he has been studying the role of cellular transcription factors in HIV-1 LTR expression focusing on strategies aimed at eliminating viral reservoirs. Recently he has focused in the development of cellular assays suitable for high throughput screening (HTS) of small molecules, to find inhibitors of RNA viral proteins belonging to important human threatening virus diseases. Awards: winner of a Grand Challenges Exploration Grant in Global Health, Phase I,of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Role of cellular transcription factors in eliminating viral reservoirs