efisGeneral Assembly,

Palais des Congrés de Montréal,  Room 516e, level 5

17.00,  21, July (Wednesday) 2004.

Attendants:
EFIS Board Members:
F.Y.Liew (presiedent), S.H.E. Kaufmann (vice-president), Sergio Romagnani (past president) Reinhold E. Schmidt (treasurer), Anna Erdei (secretary general)

EFIS Members' Delegates

Minutes

1. The Agenda was adopted and the Minutes of the last GA (held in Rhodes) were approved

2. President's report (F.Y. Liew, see Appendix #1)

3. Secretary's report (A.Erdei, see Appendix #2)

4. Treasurer's report (R.E.Schmidt - see Appendix #3)

No comment was made following the report.

5. Progress report on EFIS2006 in Paris  (C.Fridman-Sautes - see Appendix #4)

6. Immunology Letters -  Editor-in Chief's  (V.Horejsi, see Appendix #5)

7. Public awareness  of Immunology (S.H.E.Kaufmann)

S.H.E.K. informed the General Assembly about the status of the organization. Almost all Societies responded to the call and were happy to organize a “Day of Immunology”. The date however had to be postponed to early 2005. As soon the date is fixed, H.Wigzell (Karolinska Institute) and R.B.Gallagher (Editor, Scientist) will be approached for publicizing this event.

 8. Matters arising

EFIS-CIG – Martie-Christine Bene (see Appendix #6)

Appendix #1

Report from European Federation of Immunology Societies (EFIS)

By Eddy Liew (President)

This report covers the period from November 2003 to June 2004. Further information is available on the EFIS website (www.efis.org)

The EFIS Board

During this period the EFIS Board has met twice: Prague, 8 November 2003 and Lucca, 3 April 2004. The next Board meeting will be held on 20 July 2004 in Montreal during the ICI.

16^th European Congress of Immunology (ECI)

This is a new initiative to replace the European Immunology Meeting held every three years. During the Congress year (every 3 years), member society will suspend their respective annual meeting and pool their resources for the ECI. The new format is to create a critical mass of European Immunologists. It is expected that the Congress will be attended by up to 4 thousands immunologists. The first ECI will be held from 6-9 September 2006 in Paris. The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) met in Paris in March 2004 and the next SPC meeting is planned during the Montreal ICI congress. A European Economic Interest Group (EEIG) under the chairmanship of the President of EFIS is currently being established to oversee the financial aspect of the ECIs. The organisation of Paris ECI is progressing to plan.

Immunology Letters

This is the EFIS Journal the income from which supports all the EFIS activities. Professor Vaclav Horejsi was elected Editor-in-Chief from 31 July, 2003. Since then the Journal has continued its progression. New Associate Editors have been appointed. An electronic submission system was introduced at the end of 2003 with excellent results. The review time and publication period has been considerably shortened. The current rejection rate is 40%, with 2 invited review papers in every issue.

European Research Council

EFIS is a member of the consortia lobbying for the establishment of the European Research Council to concentrate on supporting excellence in Basic Sciences in Europe. The Steering committee is very active in this aspect and the outcome may be clearer at the beginning of 2005. EFIS is also preparing a position paper on the important roles of Immunology in health services and economy to the European Commission on Strategies and Topics.

Day of Immunology

An “Immunology Day” to improve public awareness of immunology is being organised by Professor Stefan Kaufmann in November 2004. During this day, each EFIS member society will organise a public educational lecture for lay people by key representatives of their society in major cities. This project is in progress.

EFIS Lectures

The following EFIS Lectures were approved and supported (Euro 1000 each):

Michel Goldman (French Society)

Michael Reth (French Society)

Eddy Liew (Italian Society)

EFIS-sponsored Conferences

Support for the following meetings has been approved by the EFIS Board:

6^th Tatra Immunology Conference (11-16/9, 2004).                           E 20,000

European Congress of Reproductive Immunology (30/6-4/7, 2004)  E   2,500.

Post graduate Course, Belgrade (29/8-2/9, 2004)                               E 15,000

Appendix #2

Secretary's report

Since the last GA in Rhodees the EFIS Board held two meetings:

                     Prague (November 8, 2003.)

                     Lucca (April 3, 2004)

The Minutes of these meetings were sent out to all Member Societies.

Communication with EFIS-members is by now mostly done via e-mail. Except a very few societies, this is going smoothly.

EFIS-homepage

The EFIS-homepage (www.efis.org) is maintained by I. Kacskovics, in Budapest, and all of you who ever contacted him (asking to put on meetings, jobs, etc.) might have witnessed his very fast response and action - so this is indeed a very active service where one can get easily information about various activities.

I would like to take this opportunity again and ask all EFIS-members to use this homepage. I also would like to ask each Society to inform me about changes in the Board of their Society, to make communication continuous and easy.

Finally I would like to thank the cooperation of most of the Societies, in the hope, that it will remain the same in the next years.

Anna Erdei

Appendix #3

Treasurer’s Report                                 July 2004

Balance 2003                                        € 160.642,51

Income 2004 up to July 2004                 €   22.871,91

Spending 2004 up to July 2004              €  79.375,22    

Total                                                     € 104.139,20

 

Income 2004

Elsevier Science                                    €   21.044,64

Credit Interest                                       €     1.000,41

IUIS Contribution 2004                           €       826,86

Spending 2004

ICI/FOCIS 2004 EFIS awards                                              €  27.057,50

Tatra Immunology Conference                                             €  20.047,84

Reviews and Editorial Immunol. Letters 

Running Costs                                                                     €  17.904,78

IL Editor Meeting Prague                                                      €    5.935,69

Board Meeting Lucca                                                           €    4.209,55      

Travel Stipends for European Congress

of Reproductive Immunology, Pilsen                                     €    2.511,00

Preparatory Meeting for ECI 2006 Paris                                €       949,07

Bank fees and duties                                                            €       447,86

Balance Board Meeting Paris                                               €       311,93

See also planning 2003 Rhodes

Appendix #4

Progress Report on ECI 2006 -  Catherine Sautes-Fridman, President of EFIS-ECI

The meeting will be 50% basic/50% clinical with four tracks: Innate immunity, Adaptative Immunity, Diseases of the Immune System and Immune Intervention; The general scheme is the following: symposia and workshops, progress in sessions and educational sessions, industry satellite symposia; satellite meetings and satellite symposia are planned with European societies related to Immunology. The scientific advisory committee is under constitution. Discussion is underway with IMLET for publication of abstracts. A European Economic Interest Group has been created to organize ECI-2006 (President:  E.L., members: EFIS, SFI, BSI, dFGI, SIICA, SSI, Spanish Society of Immunology). Members can be modified for future ECI meetings, if necessary. Sponsors have been approached during ICI2004 to promote ECI2006. This process will continue during the next annual meetings of the national societies. A detail of sum and numbers of grants provided by national societies and by EFIS has been requested for the next steering committee (December 2004).

Appendix #5

Immunology Letters  (2004, April)

1)    The electronic submission system introduced several months ago works very well, it represents really an enormous progress and makes the life of the editors much easier. The manuscripts are usually reviewed in less than 3 weeks after submission (referees are asked to provide reviews in 2 weeks).

2)    We continue to have a reasonable number of manuscripts submitted, the quality remains relatively low and it will be difficult to change it. We can start with a more stringent selection only when we have more good manuscripts. At the moment the major task remains to fill the issues up; only the really bad manuscripts are rejected (some are simply terrible…).

            Since January the individual editors have been dealing with the following numbers of

            manuscripts:

                             Accepted     Rejected        In various phases of handling

Horejsi                        21              8                                  26

Stockinger                     2              1                                  3

Minato                          4              5                                  6

Garside                         3              2                                   8

Total                          >30          >16                               >51

The numbers of accepted manuscripts in the previous months have been:

July, 15 manuscripts,

Aug, 8

Sep, 13

Oct, 15

Nov, 14

Dec, 14,  plus 27 special issue (Signal-meeting, Sopron)

3)    Minireviews – so far there were at least 9 reviews published or accepted since August 2003. Our plan is to have 2 minireviews in each issue. So far we have promises from 29 authors (deadlines April – December 2004); we will follow that up very carefully, remind the authors, ask additional ones.

4)    Some recipients of the EFIS Lecture Awards are still supposed to submit their papers to Immunology Letters.

5)    Special issues:

            Signals and signal processing in the immune system, Sopron, September 2003

This was very successful; the Hungarian organizers/guest editors managed to secure a collection of both review and original papers by prominent speakers at the conference (see below).

           Planned:

            6^th EFIS Tatra Conference;

            Immunogenomics Meeting (Budapest)

            We would much welcome any suggestions by the EFIS Board members and others!!!

6)    To summarize, I think it goes OK, but it is a lot of work. Without the electronic system I would be completely overwhelmed and probably mad.

Vaclav Horejsi

Special Issue of Immunology Letters.

12th Symposium on "Signals and Signal Processing in the Immune System"

Guest editors: Anna Erdei, János Gergely, János Matkó

Content:

CURRENT VIEWS (Review articles)

L. du Pasquier:

Speculations on the origin of the vertebrate immune system 

P. Parham:

Killer cell immunoglobulin-like (KIR) receptor diversity: balancing signals in the natural killer (NK) cell response

C.A. Jefferies, L.A.J.O'Neill:

Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (Btk) – the critical tyrosine kinase in LPS signalling?

M.A. Otten, M van Egmond:

The Fc receptor for IgA (FcαRI, CD89)

A. Getahun, B.Heyman:

IgG- and IgE-mediated antigen presentation on MHC class II

A. Erdei, M. Andrásfalvy, G. Tóth, I. Pecht:

Regulation of mast cell activation by complement-derived peptides

V. Horejsi:

Transmembrane adaptor proteins in membrane microdomains: important regulators of immunoreceptor signaling

N. Hogg, A. Smith, A. McDowall, K. Giles, P. Stanley, M. Laschinger, R. Henderson:

How T cells use LFA-1 to attach and migrate

G. Panyi, Z. Varga, R. Gáspár:

Ion channels and lymphocyte activation

REGULAR ARTICLES

T. Wossning, M. Reth:

B cell antigen receptor assembly and Syk activation in the S2 cell reconstitution system

A. M. Brauweiler, J. C. Cambier

Autonomous SHIP-dependent FcgR signaling in Pre-B cells leads to inhibition of cell migration and induction of cell death

D. Medgyesi, R. Sárközi, G. Koncz, K. Arató, Á. Kertész, G. Sármay:

MAP kinase docking site on human type IIb Fcγ receptors - its functional consequences

M. Viau, B. Cholley, L. Björck, M. Zouali:

Down-modulation of the antigen-receptor by a superantigen for human B cells

Gy. Hajas, E. Zsiros, T. László, P. Hajdu, S. Somodi, B. Réthi, P. Gogolák, K. Ludányi, G. Panyi and É. Rajnavölgyi:

Phenotypic, functional and electrophysiological characterization of KG-1 cells

J. Kármán, C. Ling, M. Sandor, Z. Fabry:

Dendritic cells in the initiation of immune responses against central nervous system derived antigens

D. O. Co, L. H. Hogan, S. II Kim, M. Sandor:

T cell contributions to the different phases of granuloma formation

L. McNeill, R.L. Cassady, S. Sarkardei, J.C. Cooper, G. Morgan, D.R. Alexander:

CD45 isoforms in T cell signaling and development

I. Gombos, C. Detre, G. Vámosi, J. Matkó:

Rafting MHC-II domains in the APC (presynaptic) plasma membrane and the thresholds for T-cell activation and immunological synapse formation.

N. Kondo, Y. Ishii, A. Son, J. Sakakura-Nishiyama, Y-W. Kwon, M. Tanito, Y. Nishinaka, Y. Matsuo, T. Nakayama, M.Taniguchi, J. Yodoi:

Cystein-dependent immune regulation by TRX and MIF/GIF family proteins

W. Elis, M. Reth, M. Huber:

Functional folding of a cytoplasmic single-chain variable fragment and its use as elutable protein purification tag

A.S. Sreedhar, G. Nardai, P. Csermely:

Enhancement of complement-induced cell lysis: A novel mechanism for the anticancer effects of Hsp90 inhibitors.

J. Abramson, G. Rozenblum, I. Pecht:

Stable knockdown of MAFA expression in RBL-2H3 cells by siRNA retrovirus delivery system

O. Levy-Nissenbaum, E. Barak, T. Burg, O. Sagi-Ossif, Y. Kloog, I. P. Witz:

Does the dual specificity MAPK phosphatase Pyst2-L lead a monogamous relationship with the Erk2 protein?

L. Goldberg-Bittman, E. Neumark, O. Sagi-Assif, E. Azenshtein, T. Meshel, I.P. Witz, A. Ben-Baruch:

The expression of the chemokine receptor CXCR3 and its ligand, CXCL10, in human breast adenocarcinoma cell lines

I. Nevo, O. Sagi-Assif, T. Meshel, H. Geminder, L. Goldberg-Bittman, S. Ben-Menachem, B. Shalmon, I. Goldberg,  A. Ben-Baruch, I. P. Witz:

The tumor microenvironment: CXCR4 is associated with distinct protein expression patterns in neuroblastoma cells

K. Hegyi, K. A. Fülöp, K. J. Kovács, A. Falus, S. Tóth:

High leptin level is accompanied with decreased long leptin receptor transcript in histamine deficient transgenic mice

Appendix #5

efis clinical immunology group

Report summer 2004

A few new members have joined the group and appear on the internet site.

EFIS-CIG was invited by the Swiss Society of Immunology to give talk about Immunology Laboratories in Europe in April. This prompted a spring poll on the subject, which yielded 25 answers from 19 countries. After a few minor corrections, the slides of this PowerPoint presentation will be posted on the Internet site during the summer. The information collected was found very interesting and several members have used it for discussion with their authorities. A similar poll could be attempted in the coming year about Bedside Clinical Immunology.

The 2004 educational session had tentatively been planned with the Balkan society but it was finally not possible to organize it. The theme retained is "Pros and Cons of IVIG therapy", and contact will be made to see whether it could be possible to have this session in the UK in December 2004.

There has been close collaboration with the UEMS Immunobiopathology group, and a Curriculum has been written, that is posted on the UEMS Internet site, and should shortly be published in Immunology Letters.

There is an ongoing enquiry on Immunology training for PhDs who may eventually work in clinical immunology labs.

EFIS-CIG has continued participation to European Laboratory Medicine, and a working group on lab tests and referentials is being constituted. Through ELM, it was possible to inform the EU of the concern of laboratory people about CE marking and disappearance from the market of several commercial tests or reagents.

EFIS-CIG also has a continued participation to European Accreditation. The ISO 15189 new referential is being more and more used in European countries, and we participated in its interpretation through a checklist available on demand.

MC Béné

EFIS Liaison Officer For Clinical Immunology

July 21, 2004