Keynote speaker

Prof. Dr. Federica Sallusto

Immunologist and professor

Professor Federica Sallusto is a renowned Italian-Swiss immunologist and professor of Medical Immunology at ETH Zurich and Università della Svizzera italiana. She leads the Cellular Immunology Laboratory and directs the Center of Medical Immunology at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona. Her pioneering research has significantly advanced our understanding of T cell differentiation, memory, and trafficking, including the identification of central and effector memory T cells, Th22 cells, and distinct Th17 subsets. Prof. Sallusto is a member of EMBO and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. and past president of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS)”

Confirmed plenary speakers

Gerhard Krönke

Charité University Hospital Berlin

Gerhard Krönke is the chair and director of the Medical Department of Rheumatology and Clinical immunology at the Charité University Hospital Berlin. His research work focuses on the molecular mechanisms contributing to the development of immune mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. A particular focus of his research lies on the identification of novel therapeutic targets and treatment approaches, which resulted in the identification of a novel molecular mode of action of glucocorticoids as well as the introduction of novel therapeutic strategies such as CAR T cells and T cell engagers as newly emerging therapeutic principles for IMIDs. He received multiple awards as well as an ERC Starting grant and an ERC consolidator grant.

William Agace

University of Copenhagen and Lund University

William Agace completed his PhD in 1996 at Lund University, Sweden. After a postdoc in Boston he returned to Lund in 1999 to establish an independent research group. He currently holds a Professorship at the Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Copenhagen University and at the Immunology Section, Lund University, Sweden. His research interests lie within the field of intestinal immunology and here his group has provided valuable insights into the mechanisms regulating T cell migration to the intestine as well as the diversity and function of intestinal dendritic cells. More recently his group has focused on characterizing immune compartments along the length of the human intestine and in understanding the role of intestinal fibroblasts in regulating immune function in health and disease. He has for many years been an active member of the Society of Mucosal Immunology (SMI), serving as both european councillor and president and as a past editor of the SMI associated journal Mucosal Immunology.

Riitta Lahesmaa

Turku Biscience Centr and University of Turku

Riitta Lahesmaa, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Systems immunology and the Director of Turku Bioscience Centre, Turku, Finland (https://bioscience.fi/). She directs IMMUNOCAPS, a Research Council of Finland project in immunology at the University of Turku and her research group belongs to the InFLAMES flagship programme.

Dr. Lahesmaa's research group aims at understanding regulation of immune response and molecular mechanisms of type 1 diabetes (T1D) and other human immune mediated and inflammatory diseases. The studies have resulted in the identification of novel molecular mechanisms and new regulators of T cell functions and very early changes in immune response associated with development of T1D. She has participated to a number of EU-funded consortia and projects. She has published > 250 original papers and reviews and has several issued patents and patent applications. She is an elected member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and EMBO.

Johanna Olweus

University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital

Johanna Olweus is Professor at the University of Oslo and Head of Department of Cancer Immunology, Institute for Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital. She is an MD, PhD (University of Bergen, Norway) by training with a medical specialty in clinical immunology. The ambition of her group is to discover T cell receptors with therapeutic potential directed at novel cancer targets. This goal is pursued with her ERC Consolidator grant and in the Center of Excellence PRIMA – the PRecision Immunotherapy Alliance (2023 – 2033, Research Council of Norway), for which Olweus is Director 2028-33. Olweus´group is part of the MATCHMAKERS consortium that launched in 2024 funded by the CRUK/NIH to pursue the Cancer Grand Challenges – to crack the T-cell receptor cancer recognition code.

Niklas Björkström

Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital

Niklas Björkström is a Professor at Center for Infectious Medicine, Karolinska Institutet and consultant physician in clinical microbiology at Karolinska University Hospital. Björkström earned his medical and doctoral degrees at Karolinska Institutet, performed postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA, and have been a principal investigator at Karolinska Institutet since 2014. Björkström is an ERC Starting Grant recipient, WAF fellow, SSF Future Research Leader and has received numerous awards for his work including the Anders Jahre Award for Young Researchers, IPSCSG Investigator Award, and the UEG Rising Star Award.

The main focus of his research is to understand the biology of human innate and unconventional lymphocytes in health and disease with a focus on the human liver and biliary tract system as well as the uterus. His research group is specialized in advanced immunological methods for analysis of rare populations of human immune cells in tissues.

Bjørn Tore Gjertsen

University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital

Bjørn Tore Gjertsen, MD, PhD. is Professor of Hematology from 2007 at Department of Clinical Science at the University of Bergen, working as Research Chief and Consultant Hematologist at Helse Bergen Health Trust, developing early phase clinical trials at Haukeland University Hospital. In 2016 Gjertsen was appointed co-director for Centre for Cancer Biomarkers (CCBIO) Norwegian Centre of Excellence, University of Bergen. His major research interest is development of targeted therapy and accompanying diagnostics in the aggressive blood cancer acute myeloid leukemia. His laboratory is working on intracellular signal transduction and its regulation of the tumor suppressor protein p53. Single cell signaling and immune profiling by multiplexing mass cytometry has been developed for monitoring of immuno- and signaling-directed therapy and is currently used for therapy development of various cancers and myeloid leukemias.

Fatima Dhalla

University of Oxford

Dr Fatima Dhalla is a consultant clinical immunologist and senior scientist in Developmental Immunology laboratory in the University of Oxford. Her clinical work focuses on patients with inborn errors of immunity and diagnostic laboratory immunology, and fuels research projects that set out to define the genetic causes, develop diagnostic tests and establish best treatment practices and for patients with rare and undefined inborn errors of immunity. Her primary research focus lies in thymic stromal cell biology from fundamental aspects of their development, function and maintenance to more translational studies including models of human congenital thymic defects, thymic involution, and strategies to rejuvenate or boost the function of the thymus.

Marie Wahren-Herlenius

Karolinska Institutet and University of Bergen

Marie Wahren-Herlenius is a professor of Experimental Rheumatology at Karolinska Institutet and an adjunct professor at the University of Bergen. Her research interests are in Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune rheumatic disease that affects predominatly women in a 9:1 proportion. She is persuing investigations to understand why the disease associated polymorphisms, which are equally common in men and women in the general population, only confer risk of Sjögren’s syndrome when present in women. She is also a member of the Nobel Assembly.