As the ICIS gathers in Athens for our annual meeting this should have been a moment to reflect on the events of the last four years, and I will do that. At the time I drafted this letter we were expecting 9 in-person participants from Israel including the 2023 Honorary Lifetime Membership Award winner, Daniela Novick and invited speaker Ido Amit, both from Weizmann Institute of Science, as well as long-time ICIS member and Symposium presenter, Raymond Kaempfer and Lightning Talk presenter Amiram Ariel, both from University of Haifa. As far as we know, all of our Israeli participants are safe and we extend our deepest concern to them and their families, friends and colleagues and everyone affected by the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts revolve now around what they are going through even as we are now packing our suitcases and making final updates to our presentations.
We have seen unprecedented challenges that revolved around the need to host two virtual meetings and to return to a successful in-person meeting in Hawaii in 2022 (with 300 participating virtually) and will continue to provide a virtual platform to insure full participation to communicate the latest advancements in cytokine & interferon biology revolutionizing modern medicine. The meetings committee, chaired by Brendan Jenkins, has charted a course for future meetings in South Korea (2024), Seattle (2025) and Cardiff (2026). In addition, membership continued to grow, currently at 1,142 with nearly 50% being trainees. Likewise, as an international society it remains important to develop our DEI and mentorship efforts – led by Juan Mendoza and Adriana Forero, working together with the Early-Career Researcher (ECR) committee.
These successes have come at a time when we needed to negotiate changes in the funding landscape for the society. In 2020 the society’s 30 year awards funding from the Milstein Family in NYC came to an end. The Milstein family’s support recognized the young investigators to watch in the field of cytokine and interferon research for many years through the generous student/postdoc travel awards, prestigious Milstein Award and career changing Milstein Young Investigator Awards. Since then the society has attracted new industry sponsored funding for awards, with the ICIS-Pfizer Award for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research . Pfizer also supports four trainees with the top abstracts to be presented at the annual meeting. Since 2021 Regeneron has committed to support our ICIS-Regeneron New Investigator Awards for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research which continues the tradition of recognizing the next generation of leaders in our field. Thanks to the generosity of Lifetime Honorary Member, William (Bill) Fleischmann there was a corresponding increase in the Christina Fleischmann Award. Since its inception in 1988, this award was designed to recognize excellence in Interferon & Cytokine Research in memory of interferon scientist Christina Fleischmann.
Last year also marked a new turn of events for the ICIS, the establishment of two memorial endowed funds. The ICIS-BioLegend William E. Paul Award for Excellence in Cytokine Research, honoring the legacy of Dr. William E. Paul. Bill was a pioneer who led in the transition of cytokine biology from the study of uncharacterized supernatant factors to quantitative examination of the action of cloned entities and from phenomenological observations of bulk activities to molecular exposition of intracellular signaling pathways. Read Article in Journal of Immunology https://journals.aai.org/jimmunol/article/195/12/5519/108850/William-E-Paul-M-D-1936-2015-President-The. This prestigious award has been endowed through a $100,000 grant from BioLegend.
Likewise, a generous donor and matching ICIS funds provided an endowment to honor Professor Jürg Tschopp. Professor Tschopp’s discoveries in the area of inflammasomes and cell death advanced fundamental understanding of innate and adaptive immunity bringing new therapies to patients suffering from debilitating inflammatory diseases. The purpose of the Jürg Tschopp Memorial Symposium is to inspire current and future generations of scientists to perform cutting edge research that can be translated to make a difference in patients’ lives in honor of Dr. Tschopp’s legacy, his ability to take fundamental discoveries at the bench into the clinic.
We are now into our third year partnering with Luminex on the ICIS-Luminex John R. Kettman Award for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research which recognize excellence in a mid-career level scientist whose achievements outpace their relatively early career span. This award is designed to recognize an outstanding researcher within 15 years of degree, with extra time allowed for family-related, personal, or other circumstances resulting in extended time out of the laboratory. The ICIS inaugurated this award through Luminex while we were in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and provided well needed good news in the Spring of 2020.
PBL Assay Science has been supporting the Sidney & Joan Pestka Graduate and Post Graduate Awards for the past 23 years to recognize graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who have begun to make an impact in interferon and cytokine research. Sidney Pestka, who is known as the “Father of Interferon” for his formative work on interferon, the first scientist to purify interferon, to clone mature interferon and to develop a commercialized recombinant therapeutic designed to boost resistance to infection. He played an important role in the International Cytokine and Interferon Society (ICIS), where he served as secretary, vice president, and president.
We can be proud of the high level of ICIS Award winners at every career stage, and it is a source of satisfaction that the Awards Committee has to choose between so many inspiring candidates. You only have to consider the careers and contributions to our field of our award winners, to realize how important it is that we recognize those who are revolutionizing modern medicine and leading to new treatments in autoimmune diseases, cancer and infectious diseases. The recent Nobel prize that recognizes the studies from Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman highlights the importance of basic research for the development of new therapies.
One of the society goals is to ensure that financial support for the annual meeting provides the opportunity for our members to present the most cutting-edge discoveries in interferon and cytokine biology in order to facilitate collaboration and dissemination of this research. This has been achieved through the bridges established between the ICIS and our corporate partners that underpin support for the annual meeting. We have also extended our reach by having society members organize themed session at the annual meetings of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), Federation of Clinical Immunological Societies (FOCIS), the British Society of Immunology (BSI) and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). These sessions of course revolve around advances in cytokine biology with specific themes on Cytokine Engineering, TGF biology, insights into genetic deficiencies in cytokine signaling pathways and how understanding cytokine networks in the skin has led to new therapies in dermatology. We remain committed to help support the ability of our members to organize sessions on cytokine and interferon biology at a regional, national, and international level. If you have an idea – please share!
Of course, none of this progress over the last 4 years would have been possible without the people who have dedicated time to the society. Joan Oefner, our CEO, remains a foundation of the ICIS and her enthusiasm for our members and need to innovate has been central to our growth and success. The selfless efforts of my predecessor, Kate Fitzgerald whose presidential term coincided with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The president elect Sarah Gaffen, who has chosen to focus her term on the promotion of DEI efforts and on providing support for the next generation of cytokine biologists. I’d also like to thank the members of our Awards Committee and the numerous partners in Pharma and Biotech who have advocated for the need to support our annual meeting and Society. Thanks to my colleagues David Artis, Kate Jefferies, Mark Wilson, Trey Gieseck, Hiroki Yoshida, Matt Sleeman, Tom Wynn, Dusan Bogunovic, and Elia Tait as well as all the members of our society council. I hope that our new generation of cytokine biologists will have the opportunity to contribute in a similar fashion.
