Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Work Hours
Monday to Friday: 7AM - 7PM
Weekend: 10AM - 5PM
Program
27 MAY | MONDAY
14:00-15:20 Registration
15:20- 15:30 Welcome
15:30-16:30 KEYNOTE LECTURE
Chairs: Graham Anderson and Vera Martins
Revisiting the cellular features and molecular control of the thymus stroma
Georg Hollander (University of Oxford, UK; University of Basel and University Children’s Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland; Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Basel, Switzerland)
16:30-17:30 KEYNOTE LECTURE
Chairs: Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker and Jennifer Cowan
Development and maturation of human tissue resident T cells over the lifespan
Donna Farber (Columbia University, New York, NY, USA)
17:30-19:00 Welcome Drinks
28 MAY | TUESDAY
SESSION 1 – THYMUS ORGANOGENESIS
Chairs: Jarrod Dudakov and Marita Bosticardo
9:00-9:20 Identification of long-lived, multipotent stem cells and their niches in the human thymus
Paola Bonfanti (The Francis Crick Institute, University College London, UK)
9:20-9:40 Investigating the mechanisms underlying the transition from thymus growth to homeostasis in the perinatal period
Nancy Manley (Arizona State University, University of Georgia, USA)
9:40-10:00 The first interactions between thymocytes and epithelial cells determine thymic function for life
Ana Cumano (Institut Pasteur, France)
10:00-10:20 Approaching next-generation thymic organoids
Clare Blackburn (University of Edinburgh, UK)
10:20-10:35 Investigating the gene regulatory networks of fetal thymocyte differentiation
Brendan MacNabb (California Institute of Technology, USA)
10:40-11:10 Coffee break
SESSION 2 – THYMUS STROMAL CELLS
Chairs: Graham Anderson and Jennifer Cowan
11:10-11:30 How does “proteasome switch” impact thymoproteasome-dependent CD8 T cell development?
Yousuke Takahama (NIH, USA)
11:30-11:50 Expression of Ubd in mTECs finetunes negative selection of CD4+ thymocytes and is critical for the induction of self-tolerance
Jakub Abramson (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)
11:50-12:05 Microanatomical and functional characterization of neural niches in the thymus
Kimon Argyropoulous (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA)
12:05-12:20 The role of cathepsin L in shaping a functional CD4+ T cell repertoire
Elisabetta Petrozziello (Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany)
12:20-12:35 The cooperative role of ZFP36 family of RNA binding proteins in Thymic Epithelial Cell development and function
Pedro Ferreirinha (i3S, Portugal)
12:35-14:00 Lunch
SESSION 3 – EARLY T CELL DEVELOPMENT
Chairs: Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker and Ana Cumano
14:00-14:20 T cell fate decisions in the thymus
Ellen Robey (University of California Berkeley, USA)
14:20-14:40 Transcriptional control of CD4+-lineage differentiation in the thymus
Rémy Bosselut (NIH, USA)
14:40-15:00 TCF1 dosage determines cell fate during T cell development
David L. Wiest (Fox Chase Cancer Center, USA)
15:00-15:15 A double-negative thymocyte-specific enhancer augments Notch1 signaling to direct early T cell progenitor expansion, lineage restriction and β-selection
Mariko Kashiwagi (Massachusetts General Hospital, USA), Germany)
15:30-16:00 Coffee break
SESSION 4 – T CELL DEVELOPMENT PART 1
Chairs: Bruno Silva-Santos and Vera Martins
16:00-16:20 Epigenomic and transcriptomic changes during the ab/gd T cell fate choice reveal divergent roles for HEBAlt and HEBCan in T cell development
Michele K. Anderson (University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Canada)
16:20-16:40 Regulatory T cells and thymic regeneration
Marcel van den Brink (City of Hope Los Angeles and National Medical Center, USA)
16:40-16:55 T cells developed in P0 and P7 thymectomized mice maintain innate-like profiles and promote infectious disease progression
Shiyun Xiao (University of Georgia, USA)
16:55-17:10 A Type 2 Cytokine Axis For Thymus-Blood Trafficking
Kieran James (University of Birmingham, UK)
17:10-19:00 POSTER SESSION 1
Free Evening
29 MAY | WEDNESDAY
SESSION 5 – T CELL DEVELOPMENT PART 2
Chairs: Tom Taghon and Cynthia Guidos
9:00-9:20 Who wants to be T cell?
Juan Carlos Zuniga-Pflucker (University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Canada)
9:20-9:40 Quantitative high-resolution mapping of intrathymic cell-cycle dynamics in vivo
Andreas Krueger (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany)
9:40-10:00 Searching for the last bone marrow progenitor before the thymus
Vera Martins (Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal)
10:00-10:20 A spatial human thymus cell atlas mapped to a continuous tissue axis
Lena Boehme (Ghent University, Belgium)
10:20-10:35 Defining ligand-antigen receptor interactions in terms of Id3 bursting codes
Arpita Prusty (University of California San Diego, USA)
10:40-11:10 Coffee break
SESSION 6 – T CELL SELECTION SPONSOR BY SPI
Chairs: Andreas Krugger and Gay Crooks
11:10-11:30 Basis of MHC restriction: Coreceptor-free Lck signals thymic selection of unconventional MHC-independent T cell receptors
Alfred Singer (NIH, USA)
11:30-11:50 Molecular mechanism that links MHC restriction with a helper/cytot0xic lineage choice
Ichiro Taniuchi (RIKEN IMS, Japan)
11:50-12:10 Dissecting ThPOK functional regions necessary for T cell differentiation
Dietmar Kappes (Fox Chase Cancer Center, USA)
12:10-12:30 Defining the Role of HDAC3 Deacetylation in Thymocyte Development
Virginia Smith Shapiro (Mayo Clinic, USA)
12:30-13:45 Lunch
SESSION 7 – BEYOND CLASSIC T CELL DEVELOPMENT
Chairs: Enrico Velardi and Ann Griffith
13:45-14:05 Different developmental pathways generate functionally distinct populations of natural killer cells
Avinash Bhandoola (NCI, NIH, USA)
14:05-14:25 Homeostasis and activation of heterogeneous thymic dendritic cells are differentially regulated by distinct thymocyte subsets
Lauren Ehrlich (University of Texas Austin, USA)
14:25-14:45 Notch-induced Over-Production of IL4-secreting TCRγδ Cells Engages Thymo-stromal Cross-Talk Mechanisms Associated with Thymic Regeneration
Cynthia Guidos (Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, University of Toronto, Canada)
14:45-15:05 Armed soldiers in the crib: why do innate-like T cells stay in the thymus?
Taras Kreslavsky (Karolinska Institute, Sweden)
15:15-15:45 Coffee break
SESSION 8 – THYMUS (DYS)FUNCTION IN DISEASE
Chairs: Daniel Gray and Nancy Manley
15:45-16:05 L-7R-dependent CD8ab-expressing gd T cells expand in IL-7R/STAT5B-driven neoplasms
Bruno Silva-Santos (Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes, Portugal)
16:05-16:25 Thymic development gone rogue: IL-7R-mediated signaling in T-cell leukemia
João Barata (Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes, Portugal)
16:25-16:40 Intrinsic defects in early thymocytes drive compromised T cell development in Down syndrome
Annika Boxnick (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany)
16:40-16:55 Spatial transcriptomics and scRNAseq analyses identify atypical age-related dynamics in the thymus of patients with Trisomy 21
Marita Bosticardo (NIH, USA)
17:00-19:00 POSTER SESSION 2
Free Evening
30 MAY | THURSDAY
SESSION 9 – TOLERANCE PART 1
Chairs: Pärt Peterson and Naomi Taylor
9:00-9:20 MLL4 regulates one of the two Treg developmental pathways in the thymus
Xuguang Tai (NIH, USA)
9:20-9:40 Negative selection’s influence on the development of T cell repertoires
Eric S. Huseby (University of Massachusetts, USA)
9:40-10:00 Regulatory mechanisms of Foxp3+ Treg developmental pathways and therapeutic perspectives
Magali Irla (Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, France)
10:00-10:15 Transcriptional regulation of late medullary thymic epithelial cell development and thymic tuft cells by Ehf and Fezf2
Kristin Rattay (University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany)
10:15-10:30 Thymic DC1 lineage expresses CLAUDIN 1 to induce immune tolerance
Jirí Brezina (Institute of Molecular Genetics, Czech Republic)
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
SESSION 10 – TOLERANCE PART 2 – SPONSOR BY THYMOFOX
Chairs: Jakub Abramson and Lauren Ehrlich
11:00-11:20 Central tolerance for type 1 diabetes through mTEC’s
Mark Anderson (University of California, San Francisco)
11:20-11:40 Autoantibodies to type 1 interferons in AIRE-deficient hosts
Part Peterson (University of Tartu, Estonia)
11:40-12:00 Thymic B cells and central T cell tolerance
Ludger Klein (Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany)
12:00-12:15 Heterogeneity in chromatin landscapes and tissue-restricted antigen expression among human thymic epithelial cells at single-cell resolution
Marte Heimli (University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Norway)
12:15-12:30 Fezf2 promotes differentiation of Aire-expressing and mimetic epithelial populations regulating thymic homeostasis
Xian Liu (University of California, San Francisco, USA)
12:30-12:45 SPONSOR TALK
Immune system reconstitution by regeneration of thymus function with small molecule medicines
Christopher R. Shepard (ThymoFox, USA)
13:00-14:15 Lunch
15:00-21:00 SOCIAL EVENT
Bus, Port Wine Cellars (Caves), boat trip Douro river and dinner
31 MAY | FRIDAY
SESSION 11 – THYMIC INVOLUTION AND REGENERATION – SPONSOR BY EFIS
Chairs: Matthieu Giraud and Magali Irla
9:00-9:20 Structure and dysfunction of an epithelial microenvironment unique to the involuted thymus
Daniel Gray (The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia)
9:20-9:40 Beyond the final frontier: Testing the limits of thymic regeneration
Jarrod Dudakov (Fred Hutch Cancer Center, USA)
9:40-10:00 Type 2 Immune-Mediated Control of Thymus Regeneration
Graham Anderson (University of Birmingham, UK)
10:00-10:20 A dynamic paracrine FGF21-mTORC1/mTORC2 signaling axis regulates thymus function across the lifespan
Ann Griffith (University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, USA)
10:20-10:35 Clonal studies identify the effects of hematopoietic stem cell aging on T cell development
Julia Gensheimer (University of California, Los Angeles)
10:45-11:15 Coffee break
SESSION 12 – THYMIC AND T CELL RESPONSE
Chairs: Taras Kreslavskiy and Paola Bonfati
11:15-11:35 Reversal of Thymic Involution Delays Age-Associated Mortality of Toxoplasma gondii Challenged Mice
Jennifer Cowan (University College London, UK)
11:35-11:55 Histone deacetylases 1 controls the generation and maintenance of effector-like CD8+ T cells during chronic viral infection
Wilfried Ellmeier (Medical University of Vienna, Institute of Immunology, Austria)
11:55-12:15 Integrating TCR-controlled fuzzy logic into CAR T-cells to enhance therapeutic specificity
Naomi Taylor (NCI/NIH, USA)
12:15-12:35 T cell signaling and its manipulation for immunotherapy
Nicholas Gascoigne (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
12:35-12:50 Deciphering a genetic control of Human Thymopoiesis at the TCRA-TCRD locus
Camille Kergaravat (Institut de Recherche Saint Louis, France)
13:00-14:00 Lunch
SESSION 13 – REPROGRAMING THE THYMUS AND T CELLS
Chairs: Pedro M. Rodrigues and Michele K. Anderson
14:00-14:20 Regeneration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes from pluripotent cells: Application to viral infections
Hiroshi Kawamoto (Institute for Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Japan)
14:20-14:40 Combinatory differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells generates thymic epithelium that supports thymic crosstalk and directs dendritic- and CD4/CD8 T-cell full development
Matthieu Giraud (Nantes Université, France)
14:40-14:55 Reconstitution of functional T cell compartment in hematopoietic humanized mice with tissue engineered human thymus from iPSCs
Yong Fan (Allegheny Health Network, USA)
14:55-15:10 Analysis of immune cells and vaccine antibody response in humans after thymectomy
Scott Hayter (Australian National University, Australia)
15:10-15:25 The function of TRIM68 in T-cell exhaustion and anti-tumor immunity
Hongbo Hu (West China Hosptial, Sichuan University, China)
15:25-15:40 The impact of TCR avidity for self-peptide on the quality and stability of CD8T cell anergy
Stefanie Valbon (Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute, University of Montreal, Canada)
15:40 – 16:00 Prizes (ThymE grants) and Closing