La Jolla Immunology Conference

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This proposal requests partial support for the yearly La Jolla Immunology Conference over the next five years. The 2008 meeting will represent the 34th annual conference that brings together fundamental Immunologists from the San Diego and has included members of the Los Angeles region (over the past 5 years). This superb small meeting is set for October 21-23, 2008 and will be held at the Salk Institute in La Jolla. This is a long-standing meeting that provides a high-level training ground for Immunology students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty. The meeting emphasizes local groups and draws 200-300 attendees each year. Participants and speakers are drawn primarily from the San Diego area with recent inclusion of groups from the greater Los Angeles area. There are two keynote speakers who are invited each year to open the meeting and set the tone for discussion and then close the meeting to help to provide perspective on the proceedings. The meeting content focuses on the most exciting Immunology research that is being pursued in the area and the yearly program is constructed to showcase current emerging trends and highlight future directions. The meeting runs for 2.5 days with 16 speakers invited from the rank of faculty (at least 6 new investigators) and 16 speakers selected from abstracts submitted in the summer prior to the meeting. A further 60-80 abstracts are presented as posters. The purpose of this meeting is to 1) maximize the training experience for younger scientists in the area of Immunology 2) foster a strong community spirit in the San Diego and greater Los Angeles area that contains so many outstanding laboratories focused on Basic Immunology. 3) encourage new collaborations across individuals within groups at separate academic institutions. 4) elaborate the potential for larger multi-focal (and perhaps multi-disciplinary) scientific initiatives that utilize the substantial breadth and depth of scientific research in the local environment.