Virtual Workshop: Inflammaging and Regeneration: Pain or Partnership?
Organisers: Helen Blau and Nadia Rosenthal
Date: 2 - 4 August 2021
Location: Online
The immune system relies on acute inflammation to mitigate infections, clear damaged cells and initiate tissue healing. A transient painful inflammatory response is tightly linked to regeneration, and an appreciation of the significance of this interplay in translational research is rapidly increasing. Moreover, many of the mechanisms that link inflammation to regeneration are rendered dysfunctional by the aging process. The progressive accumulation of senescent cells over time fosters a chronic milieu of inflammation termed “inflammaging”, leading to poor tissue repair and degenerative disease.
Age-related changes in immunity are characterized by a combination of adaptive immunity impairment and a persistent inflammatory response, which contribute to the progression of age-associated diseases that drives the aging process. Moreover, acute inflammatory responses to pathogens may be weakened in aging, leading to increased susceptibility to infection. We have an incomplete picture of the hierarchies in immune determinants that orchestrate effective tissue regeneration, and the divergent immune phenotypes that derail these processes.
This Workshop will bring together experts in two communities –immunology and regeneration — to explore the mechanisms underlying immune-mediated tissue turnover, adaptation and repair, and the complex remodeling of the immune system associated with aging. We will focus on the paradoxical need for transient inflammation in the regenerative process and co-existence of chronic inflammation and immunodeficiency that accompanies tissue senescence; the cellular and molecular cascades that allow responding cells to proliferate and either induce healthy healing or cause scarring; the age-related changes in macrophage polarization dynamics and adaptive immune responses that drive immune and stromal cells to both initiate and terminate healing responses; and the potential to target the regenerative functions that go awry with immunomodulators and senolytics. Designing interventions for therapeutic purposes is particularly challenging in the setting of aging, where homeostatic replacement of healthy tissue has been distorted, requiring a synergy of immunology and regenerative biology disciplines and approaches.
Published Information from the Workshop
- A Meeting report was written by Ludovic Gaut, Laura Muraine and was published on the Node in August 2021.
Organisers & speakers
Helen Blau Stanford University, USA
Nadia Rosenthal The Jackson Laboratory, USA
Peter Adams Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, USA
Judith Campisi Buck Institute for Research on Aging, USA
Stefanie Dimmeler University of Frankfurt, Germany
Sabine Eming University of Cologne, Germany
Jan H.J. Hoeijmakers Erasmus Medical Center, The Netherlands
Merixtell Huch Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany
Paul Martin University of Bristol, UK
Andras Nagy The Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Canada
Emmanuelle Passegué Columbia University, USA
Maksim Plikus University of California Irvine, USA
Fabio Rossi The University of British Columbia, Canada
Julie Segre National Institutes of Health, USA
Eric Verdin Buck Institute for Research on Aging, USA
Early-career researchers
This Workshop is now closed to applications.
We still have five funded places available for early-career researchers (usually defined as PhD students, post docs and first-position faculty) to attend this Workshop along with the invited speakers. We just ask that you pay for your own travel costs. If you would like to attend please complete the application form and attach a one page CV, and a letter of support from your supervisor (PhD students and post docs only). If your supervisor would prefer to send the letter directly to us please ask them to email it to workshops@biologists.com
All attendees are expected to actively contribute to the Workshops by asking questions at presentation sessions and taking part in discussions.
At some Workshops, early-career researchers are given additional responsibilities to promote their involvement, such as:
- Write a daily blog for the Node
- Summarise the previous day’s themes to set the scene for the next day’s sessions
- Present a poster on their research interests
- Propose future directions and collaborations
- Give a short talk on their research
- Make a short two minute video on their experience at the Workshop
Most of these activities would be carried out in pairs or small groups and often with the
support of more senior scientists present.
