Katja Obieglo received NRS Travel Grant

Report 10th World Immune Regulation Meeting (WIRM), Davos, Switzerland

I am a 3rd year PhD candidate working at the Department of Parasitology of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC, Leiden, The Netherlands). My project focuses on the induction of regulatory immune cells by parasitic worms and their protective effects on allergic airway inflammation. I was awarded a NRS travel grant and had the opportunity to attend the 10th World Immune Regulation Meeting (WIRM) held in Davos, Switzerland. This yearly meeting covers aspects of immune regulation in various settings and regularly attracts world-leading scientists in the field. This year’s focus on “Development and maintenance of immune activation and tolerance” made the conference particularly interesting to me. Several talks on immune regulation in the context of allergic diseases, immune homeostasis in the context of infection and the role of B cells in immune tolerance were highly relevant for my PhD project. Various talks covered both basic science and clinical studies of allergic lung diseases, and highlighted the translational aspect of this research. Particularly, work presented on regulation of innate and adaptive immunity by another parasitic worm, on B cell responses in the context of Leishmania infections and on the contribution of several cell subsets such as endothelial cells, innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) and dendritic cells (DCs) to allergic airway inflammation were extremely interesting.
I presented my own work in form of a poster and received very valuable feedback. Thanks to the fact that the poster session were split up over 3 days, I was also able to visit many posters and talk to young scientists working in the field. The conference furthermore gave me the opportunity to re-connect with colleagues and collaborators, and to initiate new collaborations. I am planning to stay in contact and scientific exchange with several people I met during the conference. With one of the collaborators I met during the conference I currently discuss the possibility to visit their lab located in Switzerland and perform an experiment using certain knock-out mouse strains available in their facilities.
I would like to thank the NRS for the support I received, and the opportunity to present my data, expand my knowledge and strengthen my professional network at the WIRM.
Katja Obieglo