This meeting will proceed as planned. As the omicron surge wanes, we expect it will be safe to convene in-person by this time and will be implementing special COVID-19 safety measures to protect the health and safety of all attendees. It is critically important to both the science, and the scientific community, that we do so, to ensure scientific exchange, connection and innovation that have been stifled by the pandemic. The Science Must Go On.

Memory characteristics of innate immune responses (also termed ‘trained immunity’) have been recognized only recently, with a multitude of studies demonstrating their importance for long-term broad protection against infections. Innate immune memory has been demonstrated to have deep evolutionary roots in plants and invertebrates, but also plays an important role in the host defense of vertebrates in general, and mammals in particular. In humans, innate immune memory is important for host defense against infections, and may enhance anti-tumor immunity, but can also contribute to pathogenesis in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The emergence of novel types of immunotherapy is having a profound impact on disease outcomes in several major pathologies such as cancer, autoimmune diseases and even severe infections. However, the immunotherapeutic research has largely focused on targeting adaptive immune cells (e.g., checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T cells, monoclonal antibodies), with relatively little attention to innate immune cells. This conference intends to change this by serving as an international forum to highlight innate immune processes of relevance to immunotherapies. This meeting is a unique platform, in which researchers from several important fields (immunology, evolutionary biology, cancer biology, infectious diseases and physiology, clinical and health sciences) will be able to interact and exchange ideas, methods and build collaborations: this is emerging as one of the most exciting areas in immunology, and the proposed Keystone Symposium has the chance to give a strong impetus to this novel field of research.