Advances in cellular therapy: 6th international symposium on the clinical use of cellular products, March 24 and 25, 2011, Erlangen, Germany

Excerpt

“Cellular Therapy 2011”: The 6th International Symposium on the Clinical Use of Cellular Products was held in Erlangen, Germany, on March 24–25, 2011. Twelve years ago, the conference took place for the first time in Regensburg and was originally initiated by Andreas Mackensen. Over the past years, it gained reputation and attracted leading researchers in the field from all over the world. This year’s conference was jointly organized at the University of Erlangen by the Department of Hematology & Oncology (Andreas Mackensen), the Department of Dermatology (Gerold Schuler), Erlangen, and the Department of Hematology & Oncology, Regensburg (Reinhard Andreesen). In principal, the “Cellular Therapy Meeting” aims at providing a multidisciplinary forum for basic and clinical researchers to communicate and to learn about the broad scope of cell therapy from different perspectives. The two-day meeting was attended by approximately 400 international participants and included sessions in the field of immune effector cells (T cells and NK cells), regulatory cells (Treg and MSC), antigen-presenting cells, cancer vaccination, gene-based cellular therapy, metabolism as well as regulatory issues and clinical applications of cellular therapy. These topics were presented by talks from 23 invited international experts. In addition, 20 short talks selected from abstracts of highest scientific quality and almost 130 posters were presented at the meeting. In this report, we summarize the most important research findings and highlight the main discussion topics of the plenary sessions. …