Innate Immune Memory: Mechanisms and Consequences - ABSTRACT Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Innate Immune Memory: Mechanisms and Consequences, organized by Drs. Shruti Naik, Keke Fairfax and Renato Ostuni. The conference will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from February 2–5, 2025. Inflammatory memory is a remnant of anti-pathogen responses that may be adaptive or maladaptive, leading to inflammatory, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases, and cancers. This conference was designed to highlight epigenetic mechanisms and consequences of inflammatory memory for human health and disease. Sessions will focus on the mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of innate memory across a spectrum of immune and non-immune cell types as well as the inter- and transgenerational inheritance of memory and disease phenotypes. Other sessions will cover the contribution of inflammatory training to chronic diseases and the role of environmental pollutants in inflammatory imprinting and disease susceptibility. This conference will bring together experts in innate immunity, epigenetics, and disease biology, spanning diverse cell types and disease indication, to facilitate interdisciplinary interactions in this emerging field. The conference will be held jointly with the Keystone Symposia conference on T Cell Differentiation in Tissue Microenvironments to enable cross-disciplinary insights and collaborations towards understanding interconnectedness of innate and adaptive immunity. This provides a unique opportunity to understand non-cognate memory in adaptive immune cells and the beneficial role of innate training in anti-pathogen and vaccine responses. In addition, the conference will include panel discussions on controversial topics including mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance in mammals and the role of inflammatory memory in inflammaging. This dynamic forum on inflammatory memory will bridge several different research communities and provide insights that forecast future directions in modulation of immune memory for therapeutics across a wide range of diseases.
