The Armauer Hansen Research Institute has successfully organized a hybrid workshop on “Innate Immune receptors in co-infections: Regulation by Helminth, HIV, and Tuberculosis” from September 20-21, 2022, as part of the German-African Cooperation Projects in Infectiology, sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
With the major goal of the workshop being bringing together young and established scientists with interests in immunology of infections with Mycobacteria, Helminths, and HIV, the two day workshop which was held in Addis Ababa had a series of presentations from Senior Scientists and abstracts from students.
The interactive presentations included:
- “Innate immunity including trained immunity- current updates” by Prof. Roland Lang (University of Erlangen, Germany)
- “HIV, immunopathology, and inflammation” by Prof. Francesca Chiodi (Karolinska Institute, Sweden)
- “Maternal helminth infection and its impact on immunity in the offspring” by Dr. Clarissa Prazeres da Costa
(Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene, Technical University Munich, Germany) - “Regulation of C-type lectin receptor expression by helminths and IL-4” by Meltem Altunay (University of Erlangen, Germany)
- “Immunological cross-talks: Mechanism for enhancement or abrogation of immune response in HIV and SARS-COV-2 infection” by Dr. Bartholomew Ibeh (IVRL, Nigeria)
- “C-type lectin receptors in bacterial and viral infection” by Prof. Bernd Lepenies (University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany)
- “Challenges and current updates in developing an effective TB vaccine” by Prof. Mark Dohetry (GSK vaccines, Wavre, Belgium)
- “CLR in Leishmania infection” by Prof. Ger van Zandbergen (Paul-Ehrlich-Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines, Langen, Germany)
In addition to the presentation and abstracts, project updates on the CLR Projects were made by the Ethiopian and Nigerian teams.
Deliberations were also made on the current status of the CLR Project, with reflections and advancements going forward for the course of the project timeline being discussed.