The 27th annual meeting of the Japanese Association for Developmental and Comparative Immunology (JADCI) was held on August 21–23, 2015, at Hataraku Fujin-Ie, Obama.
Fifty-four scientists and graduate students attended the meeting to discuss the host defense mechanisms of invertebrates and vertebrates. The meeting featured a special lecture and a symposium. In addition, there were 25 general oral presentations, followed by active discussion.
Special lecture: Dr. Hiroshi Yokoyama (Department of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo). Infection mechanisms of myxosporeans to fish.
Immune response against viral or bacterial infection has been well investigated, and many viral and bacterial vaccines developed to date are effective at preventing infectious disease. On the other hand, parasites are accomplished evaders of host immunity; however, their evasion strategies have not yet been fully elucidated, especially those of fish parasites. To develop a vaccine against parasites, we need actual images of parasite life cycles. Professor Yokoyama presented the life cycle of myxosporean infection in fish with reference to the host recognition mechanism of the parasites, in addition to host specificity. His narrative expanded to subtle approaches by myxosporeans to broaden their host specificities.
Symposium 1: “Parasites vs. Host Defense”
S1. Characterization of Fish Basophils. (Tomoyuki Odaka, Hiroaki Suetake, Tomoki Maeda, Toshiaki Miyadai, Faculty of Marine Bioscience, Fukui Prefectural University)
S2. Mutual dependences between hosts and helminthic parasites. (Nobuo Ohta, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Science, Tokyo Medical and Dental University)
S3. Immunological interface between host and Toxoplasma gondii. (Masahiro Yamamoto1, 2, 1Department of Immunoparasitology, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, 2WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University)
S4. Malaria vaccine development based on a multifunctional-hybrid vaccine platform. (Shigeto Yoshida1, Masanori Mizutani1, Mitsuhiro Iyori1, Andrew M. Blagborough2, Shinya Fukumoto3, Robert E. Sinden2, School of Pharmacy, Kanazawa University, 2 Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, 3National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine)
S5. Reverse vaccinology of parasites. (Yasuyuki Goto, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
General presentations:
Twenty-five oral presentations were made over the 2 days.
The winner of the Furuta Young Investigator Award was Dr. Yuki Kobayashi at Kyushu University (Lipopolysaccharide-dependent activation of horseshoe crab clotting factor B).