In This Issue… AUGUST 2015 3 3 FocusAAI President’s on Public Profile Affairs: 4 nFocus Government on Public Re-opensAffairs AAI Expands Travel Awards and Outreach Programs 8 Membersafter 16-Day in the News Shutdown n AAIFour Recognizes Elected to National 2013 Commitment Bolsters Support for Members’ Participation in PublicAcademy Service of Sciences: Award HonoreesJean-Laurent Casanova Regional, International Immunology Meetings 6 AAIWarren Council Leonard Welcomes New CouncillorShigekazu JoAnne Nagata Flynn 7 JoAnneLalita L.Ramakrishnan Flynn’s 2013 AAI Candidate’sLawrence StatementSteinman 813 Members2015 Careers in the in Immunology News Fellows Announced n Randy Brutkiewicz 18 Summer 2015 Travel for n Ruslan Medzhitov Techniques Awardees Members Awarded AAI Travel n Joshua Obar 19 AAI Travel Grants for 4th Grants for 4th European Congress 13 In Memoriam: European Congress of in Vienna – See page 19 Yacov Ron, Ph.D. Immunology Announced 14 AAI Looks Back 20 AAI to Offer Members $1 22 MillionmyIDP inPrepares Travel Grants Trainees for to Transition to the 16th ICI “Final Frontier” 2521 Re-Cap:Outreach Summer Program 2013Update AAI 22 AAIIntroductory Looks Back: Immunology Diseases andCourse Institutions that Shaped 26 Re-Cap:Immunology Summer in Louisiana 2013 AAI 26 HighlightsAdvanced ofImmunology 2015 AAI BusinessCourse Meeting 28 AAI Members and Staff 33 Grant & Award Deadlines Participate in 15th ICI 36 Meetings Calendar 30 AAI Announces Tiered Awards for the 2014 Trainee Abstract Award Program 32 Grant & Award Deadlines 34 Meetings & Events Calendar AAI to Offer Members $1 Million in Travel Grants for 16th International Congress in Melbourne – See page 20 IMMUNOLOGY 2016 ™ MAY 13-17, 2016 WASHINGTON STATE CONVENTION CENTER SEATTLE, WA SAVE THE DATE 2www. AAI IMMUNOLOGY2016Newsletter .org June 2015 ™ 99TH AAI PRESIDENT’S PROFILE IMMUNOLOGY 2016 Dan R. Littman, hopes of fi nding ways to promote specifi c types of immune M.D., Ph.D., AAI ’87 responses in specifi c situations. AAI President, July 2015 – Littman was the 2010 AAI-Invitrogen Meritorious Career June 2016 Award honoree for outstanding research contributions to the fi eld of immunology. Littman is also a past AAI HHMI Investigator and Distinguished Lecturer and has served as an AAI President’s Kimmel Professor of Molecular Symposium speaker and AAI major symposium chair and SAVE THE DATE Immunology speaker at the AAI annual meeting. He has served as a Skirball Institute member of the AAI Awards Committee, AAI Nominating of Biomolecular Medicine Committee, and AAI Program Committee. New York University School Littman is an elected member/fellow of the National of Medicine Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (renamed r. Littman, a member of the AAI Council since his National Academy of Medicine, 2015), the American Delection in 2010, is the 99th president of AAI, leading Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American the association during the July 2015–June 2016 term. Physicians, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He has served on numerous review and advisory panels on A Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator behalf of NIH (including the NIH AIDS Vaccine Research since 1995, Littman is the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Committee, National Cancer Institute Board of Scientifi c Professor of Molecular Immunology in the Departments Councilors, NIH Immunobiology Study Section, NIH of Pathology and Microbiology at the New York University Director’s Opportunity 5 Themes Infectious Diseases) School of Medicine’s Skirball Institute of Biomolecular as well as on behalf of the Jackson Laboratories, Lasker Medicine, where he also serves as coordinator of the Awards; Jane Coffi n Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Molecular Pathogenesis Program. Research; Rainin Foundation; Cold Spring Harbor Littman’s laboratory investigates the molecular events conferences; Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, underlying T lymphocyte differentiation and activation Vienna; Max Planck Institute; Pew Scholars Program; and the mechanisms by which symbiotic bacterial species Damon Runyon Ratchleff Innovation Award; New York infl uence immune responses. Littman’s early work included Stem Cell Foundation; La Jolla Institute for Allergy and key discoveries regarding T cell coreceptors and how Immunology; the Harvey Society (including as board HIV uses CD4 and CCR5 to enter target T cells. His group president); Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation; has also studied how HIV causes systemic depletion of Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona; Memorial helper T cells and subverts normal immune defenses to its Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; DNAX Research Institute; advantage, and has more recently worked to understand Gordon Conference (immunology); Centre d’Immunologie, how commensal microbiota modulate responses against Marseille-Luminy; Irvington Institute; Searle Scholars pathogenic viruses such as HIV. At a more basic level, program; Israel Cancer Research Fund; Cancer Research Littman’s lab works to understand the mechanisms of Institute; and American Cancer Society (California). His the transcription factors that activate gene expression current and past editorial board appointments include programs and the epigenetic mechanisms that lock in service on behalf of the Annual Review of Immunology these programs through analyzing the development of T (current Co-Editor-in-chief), Cell, Immunity, and lymphocytes and their responses to infl ammatory microbial International Immunity. signals. They elucidated mechanisms of CD4 vs. CD8 T cell His additional career honors and appointments include: lineage specifi cation in the thymus including regulation by senior fellow, Simons Foundation Society of Fellows; Ross the transcription factors Runx1, Runx3, and ThPOK, and Prize in Molecular Medicine; the New York City Mayor’s Prize also identifi ed the importance of the transcription factor for Excellence in Science and Technology; NIH Director’s RORγt and other transcriptional and post-transcriptional Lecture; NIH MERIT Award; the Searle Scholar Award, regulatory networks in the differentiation of Th17 cells and Chicago Community Trust; Bernard Amos Memorial Lecture, IL-22-producing innate lymphoid cells. They found that a Duke University; Richard C. Parker Memorial Lecture, commensal gut microbe, segmented fi lamentous bacteria Columbia University; Carl Vernon Moore Memorial Lecture, (SFB), induced differentiation of Th17 cells, leading both to Washington University; Newton-Abraham Visiting Professor, protection against infection and induction of autoimmune University of Oxford; Harvey Society Lecture, New York; disease. Ongoing research seeks to determine which Peter Doherty Lecture, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; commensal bacteria are helpful and which are harmful in a Charles A. Stuart Memorial Lecture, Brown University; multitude of infl ammatory and autoimmune situations in See 99th AAI President’s Profile, p. 35 www.IMMUNOLOGY2016.org www.aai.org AAI Newsletter 3 FOCUS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS AAI Holds Fourth Annual Public Policy AAI Launches Fifth Year of Public Fellows Capitol Hill Day Policy Fellows Program Earlier this year, the 2014–2015 class of AAI Public May 1 marked the beginning of the fi fth year of the AAI Policy Fellows traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate Public Policy Fellows Program (PPFP). The PPFP is designed in the fourth to engage eligible postdoctoral fellows and junior scientists annual AAI in public policy and legislative activities that impact Public Policy biomedical research. To date, 40 early-career scientists from Fellows 24 different states have completed the program. Program AAI is pleased to welcome the following AAI members to Capitol Hill the 2015–16 PPFP: Day. Tullia Bruno, Ph.D., University of Colorado School of The 10 AAI Medicine Fellows were joined by AAI Jason Gigley, Ph.D., University of Wyoming Committee AAI Fellows, leaders, and staff gathered on Capitol Hill Nichol Holodick, Ph.D., The Feinstein Institute for on Public Medical Research Affairs Chair Clifford V. Harding, M.D., Ph.D., and AAI David Larson, Ph.D., University of Hawaii Cancer Center Advocacy Programs Subcommittee Chair Susanna Greer, Ph.D. The program opened on the evening of March 10 Jean Nepomuscene Manirarora, D.V.M., Ph.D., FDA with a working dinner. National Institute of Allergy and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Principal Deputy Director Meghan Marré, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh Hugh Auchincloss, M.D. (AAI ’83), was the special guest speaker for the fourth consecutive year. Auchincloss Nicole Perry, Ph.D., Seattle Children’s Research Institute provided a behind-the-scenes perspective on NIH and Erica Stone, Ph.D., The Wistar Institute NIAID and Joshua Vieth, Ph.D., Child Health Institute of New Jersey/ led a lively Rutgers University discussion with the Jessica Werner, Ph.D., University of Michigan Fellows. For more information about the AAI PPFP, please visit The second http://aai.org/Public_Affairs/PPFP/index.html. presentation was given by Lauren Alternative Funding Sources Discussed Gross, J.D., during Public Affairs Session at (L-R): AAI Fellows Ryan Cummings and AAI Director Heather Kling, AAI Director of Public Policy of Public IMMUNOLOGY 2015™ and Government Affairs Lauren Gross, Policy and AAI Fellow Sesquile Ramon, and Senator The AAI Committee on Public Affairs (CPA) hosted Government Elizabeth Warren a session, entitled “Funding for Immunology Research: Affairs.