12th International Dendritic Cell Symposium, October 7–11, 2012; Daegu, Korea

Citation: Lee HK, Bae Y-S. 12th International Dendritic Cell Symposium, October 7–11, 2012; Daegu, Korea: New paradigm of dendritic cell science and application. OncoImmunology 2013; 2:e23245 The 12th International Dendritic Cell (DC) symposium (DC2012, www. DC2012.kr), organized by Ho-Youn Kim (President), Hyunah Lee (Secretary General), and Yong-Soo Bae (Scientific Program Organizer), was held from Sunday, October 7 to Thursday, October 11, 2012 at Daegu EXCO, approximately 300 km south of Seoul, Korea. It convened as a memorial symposium for Ralph Steinman. Ralph Steinman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, but it was a posthumous award because he died just 3 days before the announcement. The International DC Symposium was founded by Ralph Steinman and his colleagues. The first meeting took place in Yamagata, Japan in 1990 (Ann Rev Immunol 30:1–22, 2012). Since the first meeting, Steinman, as a pioneer and a leader in the field of DC science, committed himself to building up this biennial international DC meeting. The 12th DC symposium was the first meeting without the presence of this inspiring leader. Ten years ago, I (Bae) met Ralph Steinman at the 2002 Bamberg DC meeting. He asked me whether we were planning to invite the International DC symposium to Korea. Two years later, at the 2004 Bruges meeting, he again encouraged us to extend an invitation from Korea. After a long internal discussion, the board of the Korean Association of Immunologists reached a consensus in April 2007 to hold the 2012 symposium in Korea. An organizing committee was temporarily created, with Ho-Youn Kim 12th International Dendritic Cell Symposium, October 7–11, 2012; Daegu, Korea