Welcome Address

Dear Colleagues, As the development and availability of new targeted therapies boosted important evolutions in the field of clinical immunology, many of us realized the need for more intensive interaction and collaboration not only with fundamental immunologists and with industrial partners but also with our academic colleagues from other organspecific disciplines than our own. Therefore, we initiated in 2004 an European Working Group of leading academic physician-scientists involved in clinical immunology, rheumatology, dermatology, gastroenterology, transplantation immunology,… Our global aim is to create a forum for informal but intensive interaction and networking between these translational immunologists.

Over the last two years, we have made a big step forward to reach this goal through the organization of the European Workshop on Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases in Amsterdam in 2006 and in Nuremberg in 2007. In line with the growing interest for this type of forum for discussion and networking, we are pleased to announce the Third European Workshop on Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases, which will take place on October 8-10, 2008, in London, UK. We are happy and proud that Prof. Peter Taylor and Prof. Subrata Ghosh agreed to be the Scientific Chairs of this Third IMID workshop.

The workshop will again be a three-day meeting with thematic cross-disciplinary sessions as well as a lot of time for poster discussions and oral presentations of selected abstracts. We will also include 3 satellite symposia which are aimed to focus on immunomodulation and treatment, in close collaboration with pharmaceutical partners. The Workshop Chairs and the Scientific Committee look forward to your active participation to the Third European Workshop on Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases.

Yours sincerely,

Dominique Baeten and Martin van Hagen Organizing Committee