Major Symposium Guidance for Trainees

We are pleased to offer AAI trainee members who are graduate students or postdoctoral fellows the opportunity to present their research in IMMUNOLOGY2025™ Major Symposia. Speakers will be selected from AAI trainee member-submitted abstracts relevant to the Major Symposium topic areas.

Please use the list of IMMUNOLOGY2025™ Major Symposium sessions as reference for selecting which session(s) best match the topic of your abstract. Your selection will help the Abstract Programming Chairs and Major Symposium Chairs identify abstracts that are relevant to each session.

Major Symposium titles are listed below in alphabetical order. If appropriate, more than one session can be selected. Check back here soon for presentation topics linked to each title. These topics will of great interest to the Chairs when they consider speakers.

More information about abstracts is available in our FAQ.

Emerging Discoveries at Brain-Immune Interfaces

• Crossing the blood:brain barrier
• Regulation of neuroimmune and meningeal immune activation/trafficking
• Neuroimmune and meningeal immune microenvironments
• Other novel concepts

Evolving Immunologic Concepts Linking Infection and Autoimmunity

• Microbiome relation to autoimmunity
• Viral-, bacterial-, or fungal-related autoimmunity
• Pathogen to autoantigen epitope spreading
• Infection-related failure of self/non-self discrimination
• Other novel infection and autoimmunity concepts

FoxP3⁺ Expressing Regulatory T Cells: Twenty-plus Years After

• Treg control of peripheral immune responses
• Treg in health and disease
• Treg generation and function
• Other novel concepts

Innate Immunity: Initiation and Regulation

• Innate immunity responses and regulation
• Nucleic acid detection
• Intracellular activation/regulation of pattern recognition pathways (e.g., cGAS-STING, RIG-I/MDA5, etc.)
• Toll like receptors
• Other novel concepts

Lymphatic Immunophysiology

• Function and structure of lymphatics
• Lymphatic interaction with and impact on differentiation of immune cells
• Lymphatic interactions with peripheral tissues and lymph nodes
• Lymphatic vessels in the regulation of inflammation and its resolution
• other novel concepts

Memory and Effector B Cells in Health and Disease

• Tissue-specific memory and effector B cell function
• Development and differentiation of memory, effector, and plasma B cells
• Peripheral helper T cells/extrafollicular B cell responses and development
• Memory and effector B cell regulation
• Autoimmune/cancer/infection driven and/or causing B cell responses
• Other novel concepts

Systems Immunology and AI: Transforming Data into Predictive Immunological Insights

• AI-driven hypotheses in health and disease, including the interaction between the immune system and physiology
• Systems immunology and quantitative approaches to model cellular interactions and microenvironments
• Integration of disparate data sets to study immune function, immune health, human immune variation, and immune development
• Other novel concepts and tools

T Cell Differentiation in Cancer

• T cell dysfunction/exhaustion
• Transcriptional and epigenetic regulators of T cell differentiation
• Metabolism of T cell differentiation
• Spatial interactions and T cell/immune differentiation
• Tumor microenvironmental impact on T cell differentiation
• Other novel concepts