Latest news
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Proceedings of the 8th International ISNIM Congress
The Proceedings of the 8th International ISNIM Congress, in association with GEBIN (Dresden, Germany, 20-22 October 2011) has been published by the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Vol. 1261: Neuroimmunomodulation in Health and Disease I: Basic Science and Vol. 1262: Neuroimmunomodulation in Health and Disease II: Translational Science).
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In Memoriam: Rolf Gaillard
The ISNIM Officers and Committee Members were deeply saddened by the death of Rolf Gaillard on November 18th, 2011 in Switzerland. Rolf was member of the newly elected Committee of the Society, and also served as Vice-President during the previous period. We already missed him when, due to his illness, he could not participate at the 2011 ISNIM Congress in Dresden, shortly before his death. Besides his internationally recognized scientific reputation, those of us who had the luck of knowing him for many years, will also miss his extraordinary human qualities and friendship.
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New ISNIM Branches (Short message from Hugo O. Besedovsky)
I warmely welcome the three new ISNIM branches created by our colleagues in
Cuba, Perú, and Japan, which have recently joint our Society: the Cuban Network
of Neuroimmunomodulation, represented at the ISNIM by Maria Robinson; the
Asociación Peruana de Psiconeuroimmunoendocrinología (APPNIE), represented by
Jorge Santiago; and the Japanese NIM Network, represented by Toshihiko Katafuchi.
The Cuban Network recently organized the II International Workshop on
Neuroimmunology, which took place in Varadero, Cuba, on June 26 - 30, 2011. I
was extremely glad to have sheared this meeting with the enthusiastic colleagues in
Cuba!
The colleagues in Perú are organizing the I Peruvian Congress and the II
International PsychoNeuroImmunEndocrinology Meeting, under the auspices
of the Faculties of Human Medicine and of Psychology and Humanities, (28-30
Octubre 2011). The link is under construction and should be available at the end
of July (www.appnie.pe). The APPNIE also organized an Actualization Course on
Psychoneuroimmunendocrinology addressed to scientists and students. The Course
started last June and shall regularly run until end of December 2011.
Finally, the Japanese NIM Network is the "youngest" branch recently associated to
ISNIM.
I thank all these colleagues for their efforts. I am confident that the ISNIM branches
will contribute to the regional difusion of our field of research, particularly among
young scientists.
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NeuroImmunoModulation: New Impact Factor
NeuroImmunoModulation: Impact Factor 2011
The impact factor of NeuroImmunoModulation, the official Journal of the Society, for the year 2011 is 2.383
- Dr. Maurizio Cutolo: president elect of the European Society of Rheumatology
It is a pleasure to announce that, at the last EULAR Congress in London (May 25-
28 May 2011), Dr. Maurizio Cutolo, member of the ISNIM Executive Committee, has
been elected President of the European Society of Rheumatology.
- ISNIM Congresses
All ISNIM Congresses since the foundation of the Society are listed below:
- 1st International ISNIM Congress: Florence, Italy, May 23-26, 1990
- 2nd International ISNIM Congress: Paestum, Italy, September 12-17 1993
- 3rd International ISNIM Congress: Bethesda, USA, November 13-15 , 1996
- 4th International ISNIM Congress: Lugano, Switzerland, September 29-October 2, 1999
- 5th International ISNIM Congress: Montpellier, France, September 9-11, 2002
- 6th International ISNIM Congress: Athens, Greece, 26-28 September 2005
- 7th International ISNIM Congress: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 24-27 April 2008
- 8th International ISNIM Congress: Dresden, Germany, 20-22 October 2011
The 9th International ISNIM Congress will take place in Liege, Belgium, in 2014.
- Proceedings of ISNIM International Congresses
All Proceedings of the ISNIM Congresses have been published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, USA. Additionally, papers presented at the Congresses or further related comments have been published in other journals.
1) Proceedings of the 1st. International ISNIM Congress:
Ontogenetic and Phylogenetic Mechanisms of Neuroimmunomodulation. From Molecular Biology to Psychosocial Sciences
Ann N Y Acad Sci 650:1-369, 1992
Additional publication related to the 1st. ISNIM Congress:
Papers presented at the 1st. International Congress of the International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation (ISNIM). Florence, Italy, May 23-26, 1990.
Int J Neurosci. 59:1-211, 1991
2) Proceedings of the 2nd. International ISNIM Congress: Neuroimmunomodulation: the State of the Art
Ann N Y Acad Sci 741: 1-364, 1994
3) Proceedings of the 3rd. International ISNIM Congress Neuroimmunomodulation: Molecular Aspects, Integrative Systems, and Clinical Advances
Ann N Y Acad Sci 840:1-866, 1998
4) Proceedings of the 4th. International ISNIM Congress
Neuroimmunomodulation: perspectives at the new millennium
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 917:1-987, 2000
Additional publication related to the 4th. ISNIM Congress:
Congress Report: International Congress of Neuroimmunomodulation, ISNIM-99.
Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 20:335-342, 1999
Conti A, Maestroni GJ.
5) Proceedings of the 5th. International ISNIM Congress
Neuroendocrine and Neural Regulation of Autoimmune and Inflammatory Disease: Molecular, Systems, and Clinical Insights
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 992:1-987, 2003
6) Proceedings of the 6th. International ISNIM Congress
Neuroendocrine and Immune Cross talk
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1088: 1-412, 2006
7) Proceedings of the 7th. International ISNIM Congress Neuroimmunomodulation: from fundamental biology to therapy
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1153: 1-274, 2009.
8) Proceedings of the 8th. International ISNIM Congress: Neuroimmunomodulation in Health and Disease I: Basic Science Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1261, 2012, Neuroimmunomodulation in Health and Disease II: Translational Science
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1262, 2012.
- ISNIM Regional Branches
by Hugo O. Besedovsky
In the last years, I have encouraged the formation of regional branches and established links with already existing Clubs, Networks, or Societies in different countries that shear the same scientific interest of our Society, with the scope that they form part of the ISNIM, although each keeping their autonomy. This policy, which was already contemplated in the Bylaws of the Society, aims at facilitating the communication between scientists interested in basic and clinical aspects of interactions between the immune, endocrine, and nervous systems. A regional branch would be of particular interest for those colleagues who, mainly due to economical reasons, cannot regularly participate at International Congresses. The incorporation of these regional branches was conceived as an amplificatory way for the diffusion of our field and served as basis for the organization of symposia, meetings and other events relatively restricted to a given country or region. Thanks to these branches, we count with several hundreds of e-mail addresses of colleagues registered in the mailing list that can be contacted. This is a relevant issue considering the multidisciplinary nature of NIM that implies, besides the particular scientific expertise of colleagues, the implementation of multiple of methods and techniques necessary to approach neuro-immuno-endocrine interactions during health an disease.
Some examples of the activity of ISNIM regional Branches are given in the following.
The German-Endocrine-Brain-Immune Network (GEBIN) was the first branch formally affiliated with ISNIM in November 2006, and is at present represented by Volker Stefansky and Harald Engler. The GEBIN is an extremely active network and the last two (very successful) meetings took place in Frankfurt, in 2007, and in Essen, in 2009. These meetings had an average of 100 participants and were preceded by an Educational Course that had been organized, as always since 2003, by Adriana del Rey. Rainer Straub and Manfred Schedlowski, in agreement with the rest of the Steering Committee, have written a position paper of the GEBIN concerning the interdisciplinary biomedical research in Germany that can be found at www.gebin.org.
I am extremely glad that the 8th. International ISNIM Congress in Dresden, Germany, in 2011 will be organized in association with GEBIN.
The Mexican branch, represented by Jorge Morales-Montor, had already organized two meetings. The first was organized in October 2008, in Aguas Calientes, Mexico, and the second in March 2010, in Iztapalapa, Mexico. Several aspects of NIM have been covered in these meetings, with special emphasis on the most interestingly topic of neuro-endocrine components of parasitic diseases.
In 2005, Wilson Savino organized the I Iberoamerican NIM Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was followed by the II Iberoamerican NIM Congress in Madrid, Spain, in 2007, and was organized by Monica De La Fuente, representant of the NIM Spanish Branch. The Proceedings of the meeting have been published in NeuroImmunoModulation, the official journal of the Society (Vol. 14, No. 3-4, 2007). With the auspices of ISNIM, the Argentine NIM Branch, represented by Claudia Perez-Leiros, organized the III NIM Iberoamerican Congress in Buenos Aires, in 2009. The Proceedings of this meeting have also been published in NeuroImmunoModulation (Vol.17, No. 3, 2010), and a report of this meeting can be found below.
A new IberoAmerican Meeting is being planned for 2011.
I am also very glad that the Canadian Branch, represented by Istvan Berczi, has join ISNIM.
It is expected that another branch will be created by the colleagues in Cuba, during the Congress they are organizing for 2011 (see ISNIM Sponsored Events).
Colleagues in Japan, Brazil, Italy, and USA have announced their intention to create the respective ISNIM Branches in their countries. I hope this can be concretize soon.
- A report of the last Iberoamerican NIM Meeting in Buenos Aires
by Claudia Perez-Leiros
About Buenos Aires 2009 III Iberoamerican NIM Meeting
The last Iberoamerican Congress of Neuroimmunomodulation held in Buenos Aires in 2009 fostered a new opportunity to tackle hot topics of this discipline during the three day conference. Moreover, this third meeting aimed at consolidating the Iberoamerican NIM Network created a few years ago by a group of ISNIM members and highly qualified by top research participants as well as by the previous Iberoamerican meetings in Rio and Madrid.
The program focused on the immune-neuro-endocrine mechanisms involved in the maintenance of homeostasis and the putative links between the loss of homeostatic control and the development of several disease states with a neuroimmune imprint.
More than 200 scientists from Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States met at the National Library for the opening lectures and ceremony chaired by Dr. Valeria Rettori, who welcomed the assistants and kindly invited them to participate actively throughout. On the following days, lectures and symposia alternated with poster sessions during which young scientists -most of them enrolled in PhD programs- had the opportunity to discuss their results on basic and clinical research in the integrative framework of Neuroimmunomodulation.
The main topics approached by invited speakers concerned, on one side, the immune-neuro-endocrine modulation of normal homeostatic circuits as those involved in metabolism, T cell migration, and neuronal plasticity by cytokines, chemokines, and semaphorins. This issue was deeply overviewed by Dr. Besedovsky and Dr. Savino´s conferences. Symposia on the neuroprotective effects of progesterone for spinal cord injury; the modulation of pregnancy by endocannabinoid system, oxytocin and vasopressin; and the homeostatic balance within the immune system provided by lectins and neuropeptides completed this series.
The following series of lectures and symposia approached the notion that neuro-endocrine dysregulation underlies autoimmune, rheumatic and infectious diseases with thorough and florid evidence provided by human disease models and clinical data. Among them, results describing a stress-induced neuroimmune substrate operating in rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, neuromyelitis optica and several infections were presented.
The final group of talks dealt with neuro-immune inputs in cognitive disorders, stress, neurodegeneration and ageing, and most work especially pointed to disease imprints and biomarker exploration based on a more deep knowledge of their pathophysiology.
The invitation made at the closing ceremony by the organizers Drs. Valeria Rettori, Eduardo Arzt, Claudia Pérez Leirós and Flavia Saravia to join the next Iberoamerican Meeting is renewed here and, in the meantime, readers are invited to browse a compact overview of the Buenos Aires Meeting program as a Special Issue of NeuroImmunoModulation (Vol.17; No. 3, 2010).
- NeuroImmunoModulation: the official Journal of the Society
Dr. Wilson Savino from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was appointed as Editor of NeuroImmunoModulation in August 2007. Adriana del Rey joint him as Associate Editor beginning 2008.
The impact factor of the Journal increased from 1.212 in 2008 to 2.034 in 2009, and 2.642 in 2010.
- In Memoriam: Samuel McDonald McCann, M.D., and John Strimas, M.D.
ISNIM members will be particularly saddened to learn of the death of ‘Don’ McCann, a founder of ISNIM, on 16 March 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An obituary by another founder of ISNIM, Dr. James Lipton, is located on the NIM journal site in Vol 14, No. 1.
The II Iberoamerican Congress on NeuroImmunoModulation, held in Madrid, Spain, shortly after his death, was dedicated to his memory. The article "From Neuroendocrinology to Neuroimmunomodulation: A tribute to Prof. Dr. Samuel McCann" by Stefan Bornstein, has been published in NIM (14:122-125,2007). Don founded the journal in 1994, together with J.M. Lipton.
- Employment Opportunities
As a service we will list in this Section at no charge to ISNIM Members brief descriptions of Positions Available. We will also list contact information for Members (or personnel in a Member's laboratory) Seeking a Position, together with a one line description of your expertise and one line describing the type of position you seek. Please send your material to the Executive Director, who reserves the right to edit the material.
