Report on the 8th ESID Prague Spring Meeting
May 11-12, 2009, Prague
Department of Immunology, 2nd Medical School, Charles University, University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czech Republic
The eight ESID Prague Spring meeting was organized at the University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czech Republic, on May 11 and 12, 2009. Traditionally small and active meeting attracted more than 30 participants from 9 countries, namely Czech Republic, Belarus, Finland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, USA, Great Britain, Spain. Young scientists from Hungary and Portugal had to cancel their participation in the last moment, nevertheless, despite that, there was significant participation of young scientists, including the chair of ESID junior working party.
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 tradition also continued this year. The international character of the meeting was further fostered by the attendance of two invited speakers from United States, representatives of ACAAI, generous sponsor of this year´s event.
The invited speakers from Europe were Esther deVries who covered in her talk CVID in its milder forms, and Crina Samarghitan who, besides her scientific lecture, discusses also topics important for ESID junior working party of which she is the chair.
The main and introductory topic of this year meeting was hyper IgE syndrome, at the borderline between allergy and immunopathology, interesting both for European Society for Immunodeficiences and American College of Allergy and Immunopathology. Thanks to Tomas Freiberger from Brno, Czech Republic, the molecular diagnostics was made available in organizing country very early after the discovery of causative gene and this meeting was a good opportunity to discuss the results.
Other sections were devoted to other forms of primary immunodeficiences, with the emphasis on B cell deficiencies. Special attention was paid to unusual case reports.
Traditional social program with the dinner and jazz concerts in Old Town were valued among the participants. This year was also an occasion to take part in bicycle tour, symbolically connecting Prague and Brno, major PID´s centers in Czech Republic.
The meeting is traditionally organized as a part of the activities related to the Day of Immunology, declared by EFIS on 29th April, 2009. 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, BioVendor, Exbio, Grifols, Immunotech, Lab Mark, Roche, Schoeller Pharma and The Biding Site, in alphabetical order. Thanks to generous help of CSL Behring the two travel grants approved by ESID board were awarded to ESID Junior members – Fabiola Caracseghi and Luis Ignacio Gonzales Grando, both from Spain.
We thank all the participants for their contributions and we are looking forward to the next meeting in 2010, May 9 - 11!
Anna Šedivá, Andrea Poloučková
Prague, May 18, 2009
