Immunology and Inflammation (I&I) - Berlin Symposium 2026

We are excited to invite you to the Immunology & Inflammation (I&I) Berlin-wide Symposium 2026, taking place on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in Berlin-Mitte!

Building on the success of our previous edition, the 2026 symposium will once again bring together immunologists from across Berlin.

Our goal is to offer a dynamic platform for scientific exchange, networking, and cross-institutional collaboration. The program includes keynote lectures, invited talks by leading experts, selected short talks from early-career researchers, and a poster session, with networking opportunities throughout the day.

To celebrate outstanding contributions, prizes for the best talk and best poster will be awarded, and the symposium will conclude with an informal evening get-together, providing ample time to connect, discuss ideas, and meet colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere.

We warmly encourage early-career researchers to submit an abstract for a short talk or poster and help shape the scientific program.

Abstract submission deadline extended to: March 1, 2026

The registration fee for academic participants is €50.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the 2026 I&I Berlin-wide Symposium and to spending an inspiring day discussing immunology, inflammation, and future directions together.

General Information

• Date: 17 March 2026

• Place: Kaiserin-Friedrich-Stiftung, Robert-Koch-Platz 7, 10115 Berlin.

  Registration 
  Scientific Participants in the symposium (with or without abstract): 50 €
  Industry Participants in the symposium (with or without abstract): 100 €

  The registration fee includes coffee breaks, lunch buffet and dinner buffet. The costs for
  accommodation and travel to the venue are not included in the registration fee and must be arranged independently.

  Cancellation fees

  20 % cancellation fee until January 28, 2026
  50 % cancellation fee until February 17, 2026
  90 % cancellation fee until March 3, 2026

   

Registration and Abstract Submission

Links to: Registration and Abstract Submission 

We encourage early career researchers, PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows to submit abstracts to be considered for short talks and posters through the registration link. From these submissions, six short talks will be selected with the opportunity to win an award for the best presentation. With your consent, abstracts accepted for poster presentations will be published in the symposium booklet. Please take note of the following abstract guidelines:

• Be sure to include the title of your work, your name and affiliation, and the affiliation of your co-authors.
• The abstract should not be longer than 300 words.
• Abstracts must be in English.
• Please submit only one abstract per participant.

Deadline for abstract submission to be considered for a short talk – March 1, 2026

Program

 

08:00 - 08:50      Registration

08:50 - 09:00      Introductory Words  

—----------------------------------

SESSION I: Innate Immunity                                      

—----------------------------------

09:00 - 09:25 Moritz Peiseler, Department of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Charité  

"Dynamic Reprogramming of Liver Macrophages in Disease"                           

09:25 - 09:40 Lisa GM Huis in ´t Veld, Institute of Biochemistry, Charité 

“USP18 as a key regulator of IFN signalling and microglia function”                            

09:40 - 10:05 Jean-Philippe Auger, Department of Rheumatology  and Clinical Immunology, Charité 

"Apoptotic cell clearance induces epigenetic reprogramming of inflammatory macrophages resulting in mitochondrial rewiring"                     

10:05 - 10:20 Michael Kofoed-Branzk, I-MIDI Charitè

“Molecular mechanisms controlling ILC3 plasticity”                               

—----------------------------------

10:20 - 10:50        Coffee Break                                               

—----------------------------------

SESSION II: TECH TALKS                 

—----------------------------------

10:50 - 11:20 Clara Vazquez Garcia, Immune Mechanisms and Human Antibodies Lab, MDC    

"SWIBRID: Identifying immune and DNA repair dysfunction through class-switch recombination junction signatures"                    

11:20 - 11:50 Anja Hauser, Immune Dynamics Lab, DRFZ                                  

11:50 - 12:05 Kalliopi Zampeta, Regenerative Immunology and Aging Lab, BIH

“CATCH: Chasing antigen-specific T cells with high avidity"                                 

—----------------------------------

12:05 - 13:30 Lunch Break + Poster Session I                                       

13:20 - 13:30 Group Photo         

—----------------------------------

Keynote Lecture  

—----------------------------------

13:30 - 14:30 Matteo Iannacone, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan (Italy)

"Immunosurveillance of the liver" 

—----------------------------------

SESSION III: Adaptive Immunity                              

—----------------------------------

14:30 - 14:55 Uta Höpken, Microenvironmental Regulation in Autoimmunity and Cancer Lab, MDC  

"Overcoming Challenges in the Tumor Microenvironment by Fourth Generation CAR-T Cell Design"                                   

14:55 - 15:10 Bartolomeo Bosco, Department of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology, Charitè

"Senolytic T cells control B cell lymphoma growth through FasL-Fas signaling”                               

15:10 - 15:35 Francesca Ronchi, Host-microbiota interactions Lab, I-MIDI Charitè

"Effect of microbiota and diet on host-pathophysiology"                         

15:35 - 15:50 Tzu-Jiun Kuo, Molecular Immunology and Gene Therapy Lab, 

MDC"The T cell precursor frequency determines the immunogenicity of cancer neoantigens”                                

—----------------------------------

15:50 - 16:15         Coffee Break 

—----------------------------------

SESSION IV: Translational Immunology                                    

—----------------------------------

16:15 - 16:40 Christian Gäbler, Translational Immunology of Viral Infection Lab, Charitè  

"Chronic Viral Infections and Cure: Persistent Challenges,  Promising Advances"                                 

16:40 - 17:05 Silvia Portugal, Malaria Parasite Biology Lab, MPI

"Dry season reservoir: how malaria parasites persist in Malian children"                                       

17:05 - 17:20 Aikaterini Giannopolou, Cell Biology of Immunity Lab, MDC

"Immunological and metabolic effects of methionine restriction in humans”                              

17:20 - 17:45 Ahmed Hegazy, Department of Gastroenterology, Charitè      

"Pathogenic Cellular and Cytokine Networks in IBD"                        

—----------------------------------

17:45 - 18:00 Closing Words 

18:00 - 19:00 Poster Session II

19:00 - 19:15 Awards 

(by BAYER - Talk Awards; by Fruendeskreis - Poster Awards)

—----------------------------------

19:15 - 21:00        Get-Together & Networking

Keynote Speaker

Prof. Matteo Iannacone

Biography:

Matteo Iannacone obtained a M.D. degree from the University of Milan, Italy, followed by a residency in Internal Medicine and a Ph.D. in Immunology from Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy. He trained as a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA and at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. He is currently the Director of the Division of Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases, Professor of Pathology, and Head of the Dynamics of Immune Responses laboratory at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute and University in Milan, Italy. 

By combining cutting-edge in vivo imaging techniques, single-cell technologies and advanced animal models, Matteo has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of adaptive immune responses against pathogens and tumors. His work has been published in the most important scientific journals (including Nature, Cell, Science, Immunity, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology) and he holds 14 international patents. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Armenise-Harvard Foundation Career Development Award, an ERC Starting Grant, the Young Investigator Award from the European Association for the Study of the Liver, the EMBO Young Investigator Award, an ERC Consolidator Grant, the Chiara D’Onofrio Award, two ERC Proof of Concept Grants, an ERC Advanced Grant. He is an elected member of the Henry Kunkel Society and of EMBO. 

He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of European Journal of Immunology and an editorial board member for Science Immunology, Journal of Experimental Medicine, The EMBO Journal, Trends in Immunology, Current Opinion in Immunology, hLife, Virology, Review Commons and Faculty Opinion. He has published more than 125 papers that received more than 16,500 citations with an H-index of 60.