Meeting Objectives
“Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008,” the third in a series of very successful meetings, will be held in Galveston, Texas, January 25-27, 2008. Prior meetings in 1999 and 2002 were attended by an international group of scientists from multiple disciplines, including those of basic immunology, cell biology, virology, and clinical hepatology. We intend to build on this interdisciplinary format for the 2008 meeting so that diseases of the liver are considered from several perspectives.
The primary objective of these conferences is to gain insight into regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses against infectious agents, tumors, and self-antigens in the liver.
The 2008 conference will address innate and adaptive immunity in the liver in a multidisciplinary fashion, building on similar themes from the 1999 and 2002 meetings. Both previous meetings on “Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity” drew fresh attention to the unique aspects of the intrahepatic immune system, spawning a number of interdisciplinary collaborations. As before, we will review recent developments concerning the immune system and how it contributes to injury and regeneration of the liver, as well as activation and silencing of innate and adaptive immune responses against infectious agents, tumors, and auto-antigens. Thus, the overarching goal of the 2.5-day conference is to develop a heightened understanding of how disruption of common immuno-regulatory pathways might underpin liver diseases as diverse as persistent virus infection and autoimmunity.
We anticipate that recent advances in unraveling the functioning of the immune system in the mouse may be very relevant to liver disease in humans. Furthermore, we believe that interaction of investigators from different fields may lead to new perspectives concerning common diseases of the liver. This was the case in 1999 and 2002, and we believe that it is timely to revisit these topics. We seek to establish a state-of-the-art view of this field across a diversity of liver diseases.
Since our last conference in 2002, there has been tremendous progress towards understanding how extra-hepatic immune responses are initiated and regulated. Much of this new knowledge has not yet been effectively translated into a better understanding of human liver diseases. Several advances that are potentially very relevant to the liver merit emphasis, including (i) the ability of regulatory T lymphocytes to dampen immunity to self-antigens, infectious agents, and tumors, (ii) how co-inhibitory molecules like programmed death 1 (PD-1) can reinforce T cell anergy, (iii) the importance of Toll-like receptor, RIG-I/MDA5, and other pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) receptor signaling in initiating immunity, and (iv) the important linkage between innate and adaptive immune responses. General mechanisms of immune regulation must also be considered in the context of very unique populations of lymphocytes and antigen-presenting cells that are enriched in the liver. Subversion or alteration of immunoregulatory pathways might explain liver diseases ranging from autoimmune hepatitis to chronic hepatitis C. Experimental evidence to support these concepts is still quite limited. The need to foster multidisciplinary research is again illustrated by HCV infection, where the exceptionally slow onset of primary adaptive immunity is still unexplained and mechanisms that silence effector T lymphocytes in the persistently-infected liver are unknown.
“Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008" will consider how systemic immunoregulatory pathways might contribute to the distinctive immunologic environment of the liver. For instance in the five years since the last meeting, the role of regulatory T cells and signals governing innate and adaptive extra-hepatic responses have become better defined and will be a major area of emphasis with regard to the liver. In turn, we will also explore how the liver influences systemic immunity, an area that is topical given recent descriptions of intrahepatic NK populations that have properties normally associated with adaptive immunity. A strong focus is also planned on the linkage between the innate and adaptive immune responses to hepatotropic pathogens, and how it might be undermined to establish persistence.
“Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008” will be held in conjunction with annual meetings of the Joint Hepatitis Panels and the Immunology Board of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Medical Sciences Program (USJCMSP). Past participation of the USJCMSP Joint Hepatitis Panels enhanced the international attendance at the meeting, guaranteed substantial involvement of Japanese scientists, and ensured the attendance of a number of American physicians and investigators with interests focusing on viral hepatitis.
Participation of the USJCMSP Immunology Board in “Hepatic Inflammation and Immunity 2008” provides a truly unique opportunity to engage pre-eminent immunologists in our discussions of how systemic immunoregulatory mechanisms might be relevant to liver diseases. For instance, the Immunology Board has expertise in natural lymphocyte populations found in the liver (M. Kronenberg, L. Lanier), innate signaling (B. Beutler, S. Akira), negative co-stimulation and viral persistence (T. Honjo and R. Ahmed) and regulatory T cell biology (A. Rao and K. Sugamura).