Li Ka Shing Building
291 Campus Drive, Palo Alto, CA 94305
USA
Presenters: Cezmi Akdis, MD, and Mubeccel Akdis, MD, PhD
Cezmi: Director of the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research
Mubeccel: Group Leader, Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research
Professor Cezmi Akdis: “Role of Epithelial Barrier in Allergic Diseases”
Followed by Professor Mübeccel Akdis: “Induction and breaking of allergen tolerance: Role of Treg and Breg cells”
Cezmi Akdis, MD is the Director of the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF). His research has been focused on immune tolerance mechanisms in humans, developing novel vaccines and treatment modalities, and regulation and role of tissue cells and epithelial barrier in asthma and allergies. He has strongly contributed to the initiation of disease endotypes and precision medicine concepts in allergies and asthma. He has been continuously performing vaccine, human immunology, lung and skin research to find solutions for allergies and asthma. Akdis is the founder and organizer of World Immune Regulation Meetings in Davos. He is also a co-editor of the “Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology” and a member of the editorial board of other international specialist journals.
Mubeccel Akdis is an MD, PhD working in the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) since 1995 and received her PhD in Immunology. Dr Akdis worked as a postdoctoral scientist and became a group leader at SIAF, where she has established her own research group in 2003. Her major research contributions are on mechanisms of allergen tolérance, high dose allergen exposure models in humans, mechanisms of allergen-specific immunotherapy, functions of T regulatory cells, NK regulatory cells and IL-10 producing human B regulatory cells. She is in the editorial board of the Journals Allergy, European Journal of Immunology, International Archieves of Allergy Immunology and served her term in the éditorial board of Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology between 2011 and 2015. She worked in the Immunology Section Board of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. She is currently board member of the World Allergy Organization (WAO), and has taken active roles in the organization of several EAACI Davos, Immunology Winter Schools and all of the World Immune Regulation Meetings (WIRM) since their initiation in 2007.