1st French-Israeli International Conference on B Cells and therapeutic antibodies

The 1 French-Israeli International Conference on B Cells and Therapeutic Antibodies, organized by Reuven Laskov (Israel), Jean-Luc Teillaud (France) and Claude-Agnès Reynaud (France) under the auspices of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University Paris Descartes, was held October 23–25, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel. The conference featured 36 presentations and a dozen posters. It included two special guest lectures given by Michael Neuberger (Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council, Cambridge, United Kingdom) and by Matthew Scharff (Department of Cell Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA). The total number of delegates exceeded 130. The goal of the meeting was to allow foreign academic scientists, clinicians and scientists from biotechnology companies working on B cells and antibodies to meet and exchange ideas with their Israeli colleagues, and to trigger fruitful collaborations and scientific exchanges. It was organized to ensure complementarity between the academic and industry conferences. The meeting also enabled young Israeli scientists and students to freely attend a world-class conference. It included Israeli, European and Canadian speakers, either academic or from companies. A poster session was organized to allow young European and Israeli scientists to present their work. One part of the meeting was devoted to fundamental immunology focusing on B cells and antibodies, including sessions on somatic hypermutation (SHM), gene rearrangement, FcγR/IgG interactions, B cell subsets and memory B cells. Another part of the meeting focused on the engineering of therapeutic antibodies and on their clinical use. It included sessions on affinity maturation techniques, optimization of antibody effector functions, and updates on antibodies in the clinic. Brief summaries of the presentations are included here to give a flavor of the meeting, which was held in a friendly atmosphere, with the helpful support of many of our Israeli colleagues from the Hadassah Medical School of the Hebrew University 1st French-Israeli international conference on B cells and therapeutic antibodies October 23–25, 2011, Jerusalem, Israel