9^th World Congress on
Immunology

Transplantation immunology deals with the replacement of cells, tissues or organs from one part of the body to another or from one individual to another in order to restore damaged or diseased tissues or organs. The transplant can be seen by the immune system as a threat and may get destroyed or attacked by the immune system. If this happens the organ dies in less than half an hour time period as it cannot withstand the immune system outbreak. The donor is carefully analysed and matched in order to avoid any risk of transplant rejection. Immunosuppressants are taken to prevent transplant rejection or to treat the transplant rejection. The drawback of immunosuppressive drugs is that, they may leave the patients with various side effects.

• Transplant therapies
• Transplant rejection
• Autografting
• Stem cell transplantation

Immunotherapy is a diagnostic method that involves either enhancement of the immune system or the hindering of the immune system. Immunotherapy is one of the most commonly used treatment for cancer. Immunotherapies are of two types, activation immunotherapies and suppression immune therapies. Immunotherapies have been proved to treat various kinds of tumours. Immunotherapies used in caner are mostly biological therapies, that is, they use substances made from living organisms. Checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cell transfer, monoclonal antibodies etc are the types of immunotherapy that are used in cancer.

• Cancer Immunotherapy
• Oral immunotherapy
• Immunomodulators
• Humanisation antibody therapy

Neuroimmunology is an integration of neuroscience and immunology. In neuroimmunology the interactions between the nervous system and the immune system is observed at different phases. The contributions of neuroimmunology helps in the discovery of new pharmacological treatments. During infections, activated macrophages and monocytes release pro inflammatory cytokines. These pro inflammatory cytokines affect the behaviour, sleep and mood. The overall body health can be dictated by various interactions between the nervous system and the immune system.

• Neuroimmunological disorders
• Epigenetics
• Neurodegenerative disorders
• Neurodevelopemental disorders

Immunotoxicology can be referred to as the study of the inimical effects on the immune system by direct or indirect agents. These agents can chemical, biological and physical in nature. The immune responses to such agents can lead to adverse effects. It can be of two types. It either involves the toxic effects on the immune system or the mediation of a toxic effect by the immune system. Immune toxicity can be induced by agents like dexamethasone, cyclosporin A, azathioprine, heavy metals and air pollution. It may also result in hypersensitivity and immunosuppression.

• Drug development
• Toxicological testing
• Human risk assessment
• Immunostimulation
• Predictive immunotoxicological response

Immunodiagnostics are a group of clinical diagnostics which uses diagnostic techniques that make use of the immune system of the body.  It plays a major role in understanding about various diseases in humans. These tests come in different types as they can be performed on serum. The techniques are easy to perform and decipher the diseased state of a person. New immunoassay formats and diagnostics are being introduced daily. Microfluidics is another prominent advancement in immunodiagnostics and have led to the discovery of microfluidic chips and rapid immunoassays.

• Quantitative assay
• Radioimmunoassay (RIA)
• Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
• Western blot
• Flow cytometry

Immunosuppression is the process by which the activity of the immune system is hindered. During organ/tissue transplant, there is a chance of organ/tissue rejection by the immune system of the body. In such cases the patient is asked to take immunosuppressive drugs. Certain parts of the immune system are found to exhibit immunosuppressive effects on other regions of the immune system. Another ill effect of immunosuppressive drugs is that sometimes they leave the patient with various side effects or make them prone to different diseases. The patients undergoing immunosuppression or who takes immunosuppressive drugs are known as immunocompromised.  

• Immunosuppressor genes
• Immunosuppressive drugs
• Non deliberate immunosuppression
• Immunosuppressive therapy

The role played by the immune system during various phases of cancer is referred to as cancer immunology. One of the most common application is the immunotherapy. It also includes cancer immunoediting which is the study of the interaction between the immune system and the cancer cells. The antigens in the tumours are recognised by the immune system and this in turn activates an immune response. The antigens can either be tumour specific antigens or tumour associated antigens. Usually the tumour associated antigens are found in healthy cells but they are also present in the tumour cells as well.

• Chemotherapy
• Tumour antigens
• Tumour evasion
• Cancer immunodiagnosis

Veterinary immunology is the branch of immunology that deals with the study of all immunological aspects in animals. It is connected to both zoology and veterinary science. Some of the major researches in this field includes development of vaccines, understanding the mechanism of the animal immune system, failure of vaccines and the harmful effects caused by them. Veterinary immunology is gaining its grounds as the number of pets and farm animals are increasing at a very fast rate.  It provides numerous benefits to the agricultural field by introducing new immunological techniques as farm animals are prone to various infectious diseases primarily due to the poor sanitation of their surroundings. Specially trained Vets and forest officials are appointed for the treatment of immunological diseases relating to wild animals.

• Veterinary vaccination
• Veterinary disease prevention
• Insect toxicology
• Immunoprophylaxis

Antigens are foreign bodies that can create an immune response and are bound by the antibodies. Each antigen is designed in a unique way to match an antigen. Once the body is exposed to an antigen, the B cells in the immune system produces the Y shaped antibodies. The antigen binds to its antibody just the way a key fit in to the lock and the antigen gets removed from the body. The antigens present in vaccinations activate or stimulate the B lymphocytes. After the stimulation, plasma cells are formed which releases the antibody for the disease. There five kinds of antibodies and three kinds of antigens.

• Monoclonal antibodies
• Chemistry of antigen binding
• Antigen Recognition
• Major histocompatibility complex
• Biological antigens

Immunopathology deals with the responses formed by the immune system towards a disease. The pathology of an organism or organ is studied, taking the immunological factors into consideration. It is the destructive effects caused to an organism by its own immune response. The predominant cause for which is the by restless responses of the immune system.

• Hypersensitivity reaction
• Allergy
• Immune complex disease
• Molecular nature of immunopathology

The invasion of a disease-causing agent into a host body and their multiplication and survival in the hosts tissues bring about infections. The diseases caused by these infections are called infectious diseases and they are found to transmit from one individual to the other. Infections are caused by infectious agents that include bacteria, parasites, arthropods, virus, fungi and parasites. Vaccines are used to provide active acquired immunity to a disease and the administration of vaccines is called vaccination. Vaccination is believed to be the most important aspect in prevention of diseases and is one of the safest ways to fifth and prevent various infectious diseases. Childhood vaccinations are generally safe and side effects if present will always be mild. Smallpox was eradicated with the help of vaccines.

• Pathophysiology
• Toxoid vaccine
• Inactivated vaccines
• Food poisoning

Autoimmune disease is a condition when the body sees its own tissue as a threat and attacks it. Abnormal immune responses bring about autoimmune diseases. Women are commonly affected by autoimmune diseases than men. The pathological effects of autoimmune diseases include damage of tissues, altered organ growth and changed organ function.  HIV is a group of conditions that is caused as a result of the infection by human immunodeficiency virus. HIV/AIDS has affected society, both as a disease and as a source of separation. The vital cells such as T cells, macrophages and dendritic cells are infected by HIV.

• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Paediatric HIV
• Sexually transmitted diseases

Plant immunology is the study that concentrates on how the plants protect themselves from pathogens and infections. Plants lack the adaptive immunity property but have evolved to structure an innate immunity architecture which is strong enough to detect and respond to infections. The innate immune system in plants is two branched. One branch recognizes and responds to the common microbial molecules and the other branch responds to pathogen virulence factor.  Pathogen associated molecular patterns are recognized by the pattern recognition receptor of plants. This triggers the plant to antimicrobial compounds and reactive to oxygen species in order to fight the pathogen.

• Disease resistant plant breeding
• Pattern triggered immunity
• Effector triggered immunity
• R genes and r proteins
• Plant signalling mechanism

Immunoinformatics is also known as computational immunology. One of the major roles in immunoinformatics is the management and analysis of immunological data. The immunology research can be improved by the proper use of informatics techniques. It also involves the design and development of various algorithms for the analysis of immunological data.  It also helps for dealing with a huge amount of data and defines new immune hypothesises. The data collected and stored will be made accessible to scientists to understand the functions of immune system and to learn about the disease pathogenesis.

• Immunomics
• DNA vaccines
• Immune system modelling
• Tools and algorithms

Microbiota includes communities of bacteria, fungi, archaea and protozoans. The immune system maintains a symbiotic relationship with the microbes as they play a fundamental role on the induction, training and function of the host immune system. Also, the host immune system maintains the homeostasis with the microbes and ensures that the host-microbial relationship is maintained. Microbiodata is plays an essential part in the maturation of the immune system.  The intestinal immune system is regulated by the gut microbiome. The understanding of how the immune responses are regulated by the bacteria helps in the development of new diagnostic techniques.

• Microbiome and disease susceptibility
• Microbiota and immune homeostasis
• Treg cell regulation by microbiome
• Intestinal immune system regulation
• Microbiome and innate lymphoid cells

Immune evasion is referred to as the evasion strategy followed by pathogenic organisms and tumours from the body of their host, in order to increase their chances of survival. Tumour cells escape and suppress the activity of the immune system. Survival of the pathogen mainly depends on the host evasion. The evasion of the parasite from the host immunity is common and involves variety of molecular mechanisms and it generate a wide range of pathogenic effects. The protozoan immune evasion strategy includes anatomical seclusion in vertebrate and invertebrate host, antigenic variation, shedding, immunosuppression and anti-immune mechanism. Whereas the helminth immune techniques are immune suppression, coating with host protein, large size, molecular mimicry, shedding and anatomical seclusion.

• Tumour cell immune evasion
• Viral immune evasion
• Bacterial immune evasion
• Parasite evasion Strategies

Applied immunology is a subbranch of immunology that provides support for the development of biological therapeutics like monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and diagnostics. Applied immunology plays major roles in detection of antibody for diagnostic purposes and detection of toxins. Identification of human blood and seminal strains ae two of the most important forensic applications.

• Forensic medicine
• Diagnostics of disease
• Therapeutic response
• Prevention and treatment of diseases
• Blood transfusion serology

Viral immunology deals with how the host systems are affected by viral invasion and the immune created by the host system towards the viral infection. These infections include both DNA infections and RNA infections. Viruses have complex strategies to evade the host immune system. The innate immune responses to the viral infection are epithelial barrier and the early non-specific immune.  Adaptive immune responses to viral infections include antiviral antibodies, cytotoxic T lymphocytes and helper T cells. Certain antiviral antibodies are present in the host system to fight the pathogens. These antibodies include secretory IgA, IgG etc.

• Viral inhibition of apoptosis
• Intrinsic antiviral responses
• Host defence systems
• Viral adaptations

Ocular immunology is a branch that diagnoses and treats people with inflammatory eye diseases. The patient may end up with a reduced vision and in some cases these diseases can leas to severe video loss. The immunologically mediated diseases include uveitis, intraocular inflammation, scleritis and iritis. However, the eye is blessed immunologically as the allografts are accepted by the cornea. The ocular surface fights infections with an integrated immunological mechanism. This integrated immune protection includes parts of humoral, cellular, adaptive, and innate immunity in tears, conjunctiva and even the cornea.

• Ocular immune responses
• Conjunctiva
• Ocular immunoregulatory system
• Ocular immunologic reactions

Immunoreceptors are the sites on the surface of the antibodies where the antigen binds, the antigen binds to the antibody just the way a key fit into the lock. A chain of reactions starts once the antibody and antigen binds at the immunoreceptors. Receptors like the pattern recognition receptors plays an important role by recognizing the molecules that are exclusively pathogenic. Whereas a high level of immune receptors can cause negative effects like the inappropriate activation of signalling pathways. So, the abundance of too many immune receptors are regulated in a negative aspect. The immune receptors in plants recognizes the pathogenic bacteria and fungi and activates the mechanism to destroy them.

• Neutrophil immunoreceptors
• Immunoreceptor signalling
• Immunoglobulin like receptors
• Inhibitory immunoreceptors