The Autumn Immunology Conference (AIC) has been held annually since 1971. The 1999 meeting will be held Nov. 19-21 at the Downtown Marriott Hotel in Chicago, IL; the locations and dates for the 2000 and 2001 meetings are still being negotiated with hotels in Chicago. The meeting was founded with the intent of providing a forum for the exchange of research and ideas, particularly tailored to the needs of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Most of faculty, student, and fellow attendees are from the Midwest states, but the meeting is increasingly attracting more participants from other regions of the country. The attendance and submitted abstracts have steadily increased, with 542 participants and 181 abstracts presented at the 1997 conference. The format of the meeting includes three symposia covering current areas of immunological research. Distinguished scientists from throughout the US and abroad speak about their own research with four speakers per symposium. Interspersed among the symposia are poster sessions and workshops, in which participants present brief talks on their research. Faculty from the Midwest chair these workshops, which are of special value in providing a forum for students and postdoctoral fellows to share their research, receive feedback, and gain expertise in presentation skills. Symposium speakers are asked and usually agree to attend the entire meeting; their attendance and participation in the workshops and poster sessions provide additional valuable feedback for trainees. The AIC is organized by the AIC Council, which is composed of faculty and industry scientists representing participating Midwest states and institutions. The full Council meets each year at the conference, and a subset thereof, the Executive Committee, holds an additional meeting in the spring to plan specific meeting details. The AIC encourages the participation of underrepresented minority groups through its John Wallace Minority Travel Award program. The AIC has recently initiated the Careers in Immunology program to encourage the participation of undergraduate students in the meeting. The AIC is a highly successful regional immunology meeting, and has a major impact on the exchange of ideas between established investigators, as well as the training of new scientists.
