Following on previous activities in Latin America (“FOCIS goes South”, in 2017 in Chile), the Latin American FCEs (see below the list) organized a FOCIS session at the last meeting of the Latin American Association of Immunology (ALAI) and the Mexican Association of Immunology (SMI). The chairman of this session, “FOCIS goes to ALAI” was Guillermo Docena (FCE Universidad de la Plata Argentina) and the session had 4 speakers: I. Anegon (France), M. Rumbo (Argentina), F. Salazar (Chile) and Y. Rosenstein (Mexico). The session had 80 assistants, most of them young trainees and PhD students.
There was also a FOCIS workshop, chaired by M. Cruz. It had an opening lecture and 4 oral presentations by students that were selected according to the abstract submitted
In addition there was a FCE member meeting attended by FCE directors, researchers and trainees with over 30 asssitants.
As a consequence of these activities, ALAI is interested in hosting a new FOCIS session in its next meeting (La Havana, 2021). Furthermore, ALAI plans to postulate to become a FOCIS society member.
It should also be pointed out that the whole ALAI meeting was excellent; with world-wide known immunologists as speakers, well organized, a spectacular location (Cancun, Mexico) and many registrants (over 800).
We would like to acknowledge ALAI and SMI for giving us the opportunity to organize the session and FOCIS for travel grants and for disseminating this information.
-Ignacio Anegon, Multinational FCE chair
-Guillermo Docena, FCE Universidad de la Plata Director
Latin American FCEs:
Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico.
Center Director: Diana Gomez-Martin, MD, PhD
Mexican Translational Immunology Research Group
Center Director: Yvonne Rosenstein, PhD
FOCIS Center of Excellence Sao Paulo, Brazil
Center Directors: Dr. Jorge Kalil and Dr. Luiz Rizzo
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina
Center Director: Guillermo Docena, PhD
Millennium Institute on Immunology and Immunotherapy, Chile.
Center Director: Dr. Alexis Kalergis, PhD
Institute of Immunology of Central University Medical School Venezuela
Center Director: Dr. Isaac Blanca
Centre of Translational Immunology (CTI) at the Instituto Pasteur de Montevideo, Uruguay
Center Director: Marcelo Hill, MD, PhD