Meeting: International Travel for Students and Postdocs to attend the 13th Congress of the International Society for Developmental and Comparative Immunology; Spain, June 28, 2015

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Congresses of the International Society for Developmental and Comparative Immunology (ISDCI) are held every three years in different parts of the world. These meetings are relatively small with 260-400 attendees, of which students and postdocs comprise 35-40%. The warm collegiality that pervades ISDCI meetings encourages students and postdocs to talk to the leaders in the field and to other scientists with similar interests. The meeting provides young researchers with opportunities to initiate collaborations and seek out mentors for advanced degrees, which strengthens the field of developmental and comparative immunology. This award supports travel of US students and postdoctoral researchers to attend the 13th Congress of ISDCI to present their research and to take advantage of these opportunities to interact with other comparative immunologists. Recipients of the travel awards will include women and individuals from underrepresented groups. Comparative immunology research has led to significant discoveries that have enhanced the broader field of general immunology, and in some ways resulted in directional changes. Examples include discovery in the fruit fly Drosophila of protein receptors that detect pathogens in all animals and plants; applications that are used today for analyzing gene function and for editing or correcting genes were based on research on anti-pathogen responses in plants and round worms and the adaptive immune responses of bacteria to viruses. These approaches may be added to the arsenal of potential therapeutics in the future, potentially to correct genes that are the basis of congenital abnormalities, or to excise retroviruses from human genomes, an approach that is potentially important to an HIV cure. ISDCI is the only international society of immunologists whose primary interests are developmental and/or comparative in nature; members investigate immune functions in a wide range of organisms. The ISDCI fills an important niche within the larger field of immunology, and addresses topics that are not generally included in meetings focused on biomedical immunology, such as host-microbe interactions, and immunity in plants, fishes and marine mammals. The goals of the 13th Congress are to communicate new ideas and results for the field of developmental and comparative immunology, and to provide opportunities for the young members to present their research and to interact with others in the field.