This proposal is to request support for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled ?Imaging? Immune Responses?, which will be held in Keystone, Colorado from February 25 ?? March 1, 2007. The cellular events leading to host defense and immunopathology are? dynamic in nature and involve the migration, transient arrest, and redistribution of? various hematopoietic cells types between blood, secondary lymphoid organs, and? peripheral tissues. For this reason, a great deal of excitement has been generated by? the recent application of miniaturized versions of clinical imaging tools such as PET? scanning and MRI, confocal and especially multiphoton microscopy, and luminescence? imaging to living animals, permitting direct spatiotemporal analysis of immune cells? within complex tissue environments. However, standards for data analysis and? interpretation are just emerging, as are improved methods that bridge the resolution and? time gaps between the various methods, allowing analyses to begin with initiation of a? response and to follow it through to pathogen/tumor clearance or induction of? autoimmune pathology. This meeting will bring together experts who will describe? ongoing and future applications of these new imaging methods and provide the? attendees with an understanding of the new biological paradigms that are emerging from? such investigations. Speakers will discuss both basic and clinically-related advances,? including cell-cell interactions in the development of humoral and cell-mediated immune? responses, the events underlying autoimmune pathology in models of rheumatoid? arthritis and diabetes, the trafficking of hematopoietic stem cells following grafting,? signaling events in the thymus, bone marrow, and secondary lymphoid tissues, the sites? of Treg activity, and the interplay between tumor cell growth and immune cell effector? activity following anti-cancer vaccination.
