What’s the idea behind the Berlin Symposium?

The symposium is being organised to highlight the fields of innate and adaptive immunity – two areas that are particularly fundamental to the research profile of the DRFZ. Why these two areas in particular?

The symposium is being organised to highlight the fields of innate and adaptive immunity – two areas that are particularly fundamental to the research profile of the DRFZ. Why these two areas in particular?

Well, there have been big changes at the DRFZ since Andreas Radbruch, an expert in immunological memory, retired as Scientific Director of the DRFZ in 2023 after 27 years at the helm. It’s coming up to nearly one year since Eicke Latz took over as Scientific Director of the DRFZ and Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Eicke Latz expands the expertise in innate immunity research at the DRFZ with his focus on inflammasomes.

The two-day symposium will celebrate this important transition, together with two of our central collaboration partners: Gerhard Krönke, Clinical Director of the Medical Clinic specialising in Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Arturo Zychlinsky, Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. These four scientific organisers have put together an impressive programme with a plethora of internationally-renowned speakers celebrating innate and adaptive immunity as championed by Andreas Radbruch and Eicke Latz.