Interaction with epithelia is crucial for shaping lymphoid organs and regulate their functions from early development through to postnatal and adult life. The symposium also aims to define pathways and mechanisms of regeneration that might lead to new therapies. The meeting will bring together internationally-renowned key experts who adopt different but complementary approaches, spanning basic science through to the clinical application of cell therapies.

Plenary lectures will be followed by short and flash talks selected from the submitted abstracts to give early career researchers opportunities to present their work.

Please use the attached abstract form. Date for final submissions is Friday 20 May 2022.

Poster sessions and networking will give attendees ample opportunities to present their work and to interact with scientists working across these disciplines.

We plan to run this as a hybrid event with an in person audience at the Crick joined by online attendees. Student tickets are available along with group discounts - 50% on tickets for groups of 4 or more - if you want to register as a group of please use the code Group4

Draft Programme

MONDAY 20th JUNE

• 09:15 Registration and Coffee

• 10:00 Welcome remarks

• 10:05 Keynote lecture| Michele de Luca | Centre of Regenerative Medicine, University of Modena | “Cell and gene therapy by somatic stem cells: the paradigm of epithelial stem cells”

Session 1 | Epithelial stem cells

• 11:00 Joo-Hyeon Lee | University of Cambridge | "When Stem Cells Meet Inflammation"

• 11:30 Fiona Watt | Kings College London | "A screen for novel epidermal niche interacting factors"

• 12:00 Flash talk session 1 | Maria Elena Fernandez-Sanchez | Mikael Sommarin | Kathleen Shah | Andreia Bernardo

• 12:20 Lunch, posters and exhibition

Session 2 | Thymus development & regeneration

• 13:45 Lauren Ehrlich | University of Texas | "Central tolerance is impaired in the middle-aged thymic environment"

• 14:15 Graham Anderson | University of Birmingham | "Eosinophils Are Essential Regulators Of Thymus Regeneration"

• 14:45 Jarrod Dudakov| Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre | “Cell death, innate signaling, and repair: Harnessing endogenous mechanisms of tissue regeneration to boost immune function”

• 15:15 Selected short talk 1 | Kieran James | University of Birmingham

• 15:30 Refreshments

Session 3 | Gene and Cell Therapy

• 16:00 Tippi MacKenzie | UCSF | "Prenatal therapies for single gene disorders"

• 16:30 Selected short talk 2 | Luca Biasco | UCL

• 16:55 Selected short talk 3 | Joe Davidson | UCL

• 17:10 Poster and networking reception

END OF DAY ONE

TUESDAY 21st JUNE

Session 4 | Immune organ morphogenesis

• 09:00 Thomas Boehm | Max Planck Institute of Immunology and Epigenetics | ''Evolution of lymphoid organs"

• 09:30 Reina Mebius | Amsterdam University Medical Centre | "The role of stromal cells in adaptive immune responses"

• 10:00 Paola Bonfanti | Francis Crick Institute| “Stemness within an involuting organ: the key to rejuvenation?”

• 10:30 Selected short talk 4 | Jennifer Cowan | UCL

• 10:45 Refreshments

Session 5 | Immunity & Cancer

• 11:15 Ana Cumano | Institut Pasteur | “Origin and function of the first thymic seeding progenitors”

• 11:45 Hans-Reimer Rodewald | DKFZ Heidelberg | "Mast cells: A one-trick pony - but what a trick”

• 12:15 Freddy Radtke | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | "A journey from bench to bedside for Notch-driven cancers"

• 12:45 Flash talk session 2 | Sude Beskardes

• 13:00 Lunch, posters and exhibition

Session 6 | Pluripotent stem cells: preclinical and clinical aspects

• 14:10 Yoko Hamazaki |CiRA, Kyoto University | "In vitro development and maturation of human thymic epithelial cells from iPSCs"

• 14:40 Peter Coffey | UCL, London | "The London Project to Cure Blindness at 10 years - what have we learnt?"

• 15:10 Selected short talk 5 | Geraldine Jowett | University of Cambridge

• 15:25 Refreshments

• 15:55 Keynote lecture | Shinya Yamanaka | CiRA, Kyoto University | “Recent Progress in iPS Cell Research and Application”

• 16:50 Awarding of prizes and closing remarks