Report on the 7th ESID Prague Spring Meeting
May 19-20, 2008, Prague
Department of Immunology, 2nd Medical School, Charles University, University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czech Republic
On May 19 and 20, already the seventh ESID Prague Spring meeting was held at the University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czech Republic. More than 30 participants from 11 countries, namely Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Belgium, Peru, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Belarus and Egypt attended and actively participated in the event. The meeting specifically targets ESID juniors, so the majority of the participants were young scientists, doctors and postgraduate students.
Since its launch in 2002 the Prague ESID meeting has been devoted to the exchange of information on primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs) between Western and Central and Eastern Europe. This year we also succeeded to bring together participants from both these parts of Europe, and exceptionally we hosted the visitor from Peru.
The invited speakers came from UK - Andrew Cant from Newcastle, Graham Davies and Alison Jones from London. One special session on overlapping theme Periodic fevers syndromes and autoinflammatory syndromes formed a part of the second day programme. Marco Gattorno from Genova, Italy, was invited as a guest from pediatric rheumatology society to cover the new and emerging field.
Invited speakers presented excellent overviews on the main topics of this year´s meeting. The current progress in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for primary immunodeficiencies, state of the art of the diagnosis and treatment of diGeorge syndrome and the management and immunoglobulin therapy for PIDs were all covered during introductory lectures. The two days meeting was then traditionally complemented by a session on case reports, showing difficult, interesting and challenging patients histories.
Apart from these main reviews, other T cells, B cells and innate immunity defects were covered by individual participants.
Eleonora Gambineri as a chair of ESID Juniors traditionally takes part in the event. This year, besides her important lecture on IPEX, she also presented other activities aimed at ESID Junior members. Particular attention was paid to the up-coming educational session on the occasion of ESID meeting in Hertogenbosh, Netherlands, in October 2008. The programme of this session is very attractive and is a further promise for junior members how to get information on PIDs.
The social programme was a success as usual. Short walk through rainy Prague streets of Old Town, dinner in a traditional Czech restaurant and late night theatre performance were appreciated by all participants.
The meeting is traditionally organized as a part of the activities related to the Day of Immunology, declared by EFIS on 29th April, 2008. It was supported by the Charles University, 2nd Medical School, Prague and by University Hospital in Motol, Prague. Substantial contributions came from the traditional general sponsor – Olympus company and of the pharmaceutical companies Baxter, Biomedica, Exbio, Grifols, Immunotech, Roche and Schoeller Pharma Prague. Thanks to generous help of Talecris three travel grants approved by ESID board were awarded to Christian Förster, Baerbel Keller and Olesya Shvets.
We thank all the participants for their contributions and we are looking forward to next meeting in 2009!
Anna Šedivá, Andrea Poloučková
Prague, Jun 16, 2008
