Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Innate Immune Receptors: Roles in Immunology and Beyond, organized by Drs. Jenny P.Y. Ting, Shie-Liang Edmond Hsieh, Fu-Tong Liu, Michael Gale, Jr. and Siamon Gordon. The conference will be held in Taipei, Taiwan from March 10-14, 2019. Innate immune receptors include a plethora of membrane-associated proteins as well as intracellular receptors that directly bind or sense the present of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). The importance of innate immune receptors was first appreciated in infectious diseases and autoinflammatory disorders, but it is now clear that their roles extend beyond innate immunology. The crucial roles of these receptors in many clinically relevant fields and their newly documented role in non-immune cells underscore their importance in biologic processes and diseases. This conference will address the ligands and signaling mechanisms of a diverse set of innate immune receptors as well as the profound impacts of innate immune receptors on the microbiome, which in turn has impacts on multiple organ systems. We will discuss the intrinsic functions of innate immune receptors within adaptive immune cells, non-immune cells such as epithelial and endothelial cells, and their roles in cancer and stem cells. The pleitrophic effects of this important receptor class have far-reaching consequences for critical biological processes such as cancer cell death and signaling, DNA damage, stress response, stem cell proliferation/differentiation, vaccine adjuvanticity, age-related dementia, metabolic disorders and microbiome balance. By the nature of the topic, this conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of investigators and thus will catalyze cross-fertilization of ideas which will stimulate important medical advances.
Innate immune receptors include a plethora of membrane-associated proteins as well as intracellular receptors that directly bind or sense the present of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). Although the initial importance of these proteins was first appreciated in infectious diseases, it is now clear that these are also important in autoinflammatory disorders (which do not involve adaptive immune cells), autoimmune diseases (which are directed by adaptive immune cells), metabolic diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, vaccine/adjuvants and cancer. This meeting represents a unique opportunity for researchers in innate immunity and its allied fields to interact with each other at an international scale and provide a guide for future research directions.
