A Word From: Fiona Powrie

This week, we hosted the second CSHL meeting on Fundamental Immunology & Its Therapeutic Potential and chatted with Fiona Powrie, a returning organizer for the meeting. During our conversation, Fiona mentioned the extensive dialogue among attendees around cancer immunology; and in fact: The number of oral sessions related to cancer immunology has doubled since the last iteration of the meeting in 2015. 

There's been a real buzz around the place and a lot of exciting data presented. One of the features of this meeting that's different from the other meetings in this area...is that we've had a large number of early-stage scientists who've just set up their labs presenting really new data that has stimulated a lot of discussion from the PhD students and postdocs. 

There's been a lot of discussion actually - and you can't stop immunologists talking so there is always a lot of discussion - around new insights in cancer immunology and how we recognize pathogens. There was a very interesting section in regulatory T-cells with some new findings about their specificity, how they're functioning, how they're selected. Of course, that opens up a lot of new avenues across the area of autoimmune and infectious diseases. 

For more on Fiona's research, visit her lab's website. And for more conversations with our other meeting organizers and course instructors, go here. Also, to gain a meeting-goer's perspective on this meeting, read our Q&A with Holly Algood.

Visitor of the Week: Holly Algood

Meet Holly Algood of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Department of Veterans Affairs. Holly, an assistant professor as well as the head of her own lab in the Division of Infectious Disease, attended the 2017 meeting of the Fundamental Immunology & Its Therapeutic Potential where she presented a poster. Read on to get her take on the meeting and what she liked most about Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

What are you working on?
I am interested in the development and regulation of inflammation during chronic bacterial infections.  

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting?
We (Immunologists) are making some great progress towards finding targets and developing new therapeutic tools to combat immunologically related diseases and cancer. This has progressed much more rapidly with new technologies being coupled with bioinformatics.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
Two. My first CSHL meeting was in 2013 and on a different topic - Microbial Pathogenesis. 

Is there another CSHL meeting in your near future?
I am not sure yet. I have collaborators attending the Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Response meeting in September.

Was there something about the Fundamental Immunology & Its Therapeutic Potential meeting that drew you to attend?
The list of speakers for this conference really drew me to this meeting and having been to a CSHL meeting before I knew that the atmosphere is very nice for networking and sharing data. 

If someone curious in attending this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would tell them that it's a small meeting where many people are willing to share unpublished data and are open to comments and criticisms from their peers. As a small meeting where the food, housing and meeting are all 'on campus', it provides a great opportunity to network and meet scientists from all over. Interestingly, this meeting was very different from other meetings I have attended with several biotech companies in attendance.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I love the international atmosphere. There are less than 250 people here, yet I have interacted with people from many different countries - including India, China, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, the Netherlands and Brazil.

Thank you to Holly for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course – go here.