[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.74″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]The ICIS releases the list of winning candidates from the 2017 election ballot. The newly elected officers, Council and Nominating Committee members will assume their roles in January, 2018 except for Kate Fitzgerald, President-Elect, who will serve first on the ICIS Executive Committee following the 2017 Annual Meeting in Kanazawa, fully assuming the Presidency in October 2019 for a two-year term.

2017 – 2019 President-Elect: Kate Fitzgerald
2018 – 2020 Treasurer: Cem Gabay
2018 – 2020 Secretary: John W. Schoggins
2018 – 2020 Council Members: David Artis & Hiroki Yoshida
2018 – 2020 Nominating Committee Members: Sonja Marie Best, Jean-Laurent Casanova & Thomas Decker


President-Elect – November 2017 – October 2019

Katherine A. Fitzgerald

Katherine A. Fitzgerald is recognized as an international leader in the field of innate immunity. Her groundbreaking insights have helped to advance understanding of inflammatory mechanisms in health and disease. Using an interdisciplinary approach and a highly collaborative style, she has made numerous novel discoveries including the identification of Toll-like receptor adapter molecules, the discovery of TANK Binding kinase-1 (TBK1) as the IRF3 kinase, the discovery of the AIM2 inflammasome and uncovering new evidence for the importance of regulatory long-coding RNAs in innate immune cells.
Professor Fitzgerald obtained her Ph.D. in 1999 from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin working with Luke O’Neill (1999-2002). She joined the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as a Wellcome Trust Fellow in 2002 and joined the faculty in 2004. She is currently Professor of Medicine, Director of the Program in Innate Immunity and the Worcester Foundation Chair in Biomedical Sciences.
Kate has been a member of the ISICR and then ICIS since 2002. She is the 2014 recipient of the Seymour & Vivian Milstein Award for Excellence in Interferon and Cytokine Research and the 2003 Milstein Young Investigator Award as well as the 2003 International Cytokine Society Young Investigator Award. She is currently Co-Chair of the ICIS Awards Committee (2017 – 2019) and Co-Chair of Cytokines 2018, the 6th Annual Meeting of the International Cytokine & Interferon Society, in Boston, USA. She is a recipient of numerous awards including the 2014 American Association of Immunologists BD-Biosciences Investigator Award; the 2014 Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award from the American Society of Microbiology, the St. Patrick’s Day Medal from the Irish Government and Science Foundation of Ireland.

PLATFORM STATEMENT:
It would be an honor to serve as president-elect of the International Cytokine and Interferon Society. I have dedicated my research career to understanding cytokine and interferon gene regulation, research activities which are directly aligned with the core mission of the ICIS. Having personally benefited enormously from my membership of ICIS with early young investigator awards and most recently the Seymour and Vivian Milstein Award for excellence in Interferon and Cytokine Research, I would be delighted to help further advance the cause of this important society by fostering the interchange of ideas and information among members and encouraging the next generation of cytokine and interferon biologists to engage in this society which enriches the cytokine and interferon research community so much.


Treasurer – January 2018 – December 2020

Cem Gabay

Cem Gabay heads the department of rheumatology in the Geneva University Hospital. He is a renowned scientist in his field, currently with over 240 peer reviewed publications. His research has principally focused on the role of cytokines and their signaling in rheumatoid arthritis. Recently he has been active in several clinical trials of novel biological therapies for this disease.

Professor Gabay obtained his medical degree in 1985 at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and then trained in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado from 1995 to 1999 in the laboratory of William Arend, and then returned to Geneva to start his laboratory. He is currently Director of the Division of Rheumatology in Geneva.

His field of basic research is focused on the biology of cytokines of the IL-1 family. He is particularly interested in the balance between cytokines with agonist activities and natural inhibitors using different experimental models of inflammatory diseases. He is also an expert in rheumatoid arthritis and has conducted several clinical trials as well as observational studies on biological therapies.

Cem Gabay been an active member of ICIS, previously ICS/ISICR, for approximately 20 years. He has actively participated in the annual meetings serving as Chairman of the 10th Joint ISICR/ICS Conference “Cytokines: From Basic Biology to Clinical Application”, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, September 11-15, 2012, the last joint meeting of ISICR and ICS before the merger. Most recently he served as the Chair of the ICIS Meeting Committee from 2013 through 2016.


Secretary – January 2018 – December 2020

John W. Schoggins

John Schoggins received his BS from University of Rochester in 2000, and Ph. D from Cornell University, Medical College in 2007. He trained further at The Rockefeller University, working with Dr. Charles Rice. Currently, Dr. Schoggins is Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center. His position has the endowed title, the Nancy Cain and Jeffrey Marcus Scholar in Medical Research in honor of Dr. Bill Vowell.
Throughout his research career, Dr. Schoggins has been interested in enhancing understanding of host anti-viral responses, particularly the role of type I interferons (IFNs). In 2011, Dr. Schoggins published a seminal paper, showing that IFN stimulated genes (ISGs) have differential anti-viral activities against a panel of viruses. In this study Dr. Schoggins established a high throughput system to measure anti-viral activities that individual ISGs elicit. His study highlighted the complexity of ISG action and illuminated previously obscure roles of some ISGs. After moving to Southwestern Medical Center, Dr. Schoggins has continued his research along this line, and provided mechanistic insight on IFNs and ISGs. Collectively, Dr. Schoggins’ research has been highly influential in the field, making a large impact on how we think about anti-viral innate immunity. Furthermore, Dr. Schoggins is an excellent review writer and presented concise and lucid summaries of IFN signaling and related subjects.
Dr. Schoggins has received many awards, including the Clayton Foundation Scholar (2016), NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2014-2019), and Rita Allen Foundation Scholar (2015-2020). He was a 2013 recipient of the Seymour and Vivian Milstein Young Investigator Award and the 2011 Sidney and Joan Pestka Post-Graduate Award for Excellence in Interferon Research (ISICR).
Dr. Schoggins has been an ICIS member since 2011 and active in the Annual meetings and other research community issues. He currently serves as a member of the ICIS Membership Committee. John is also a member of the American Society of Microbiology and the American Society of Virology, hold several institutional teaching and service commitments, and serves as an Associate Editor at mSphere and an ad hoc reviewer to multiple journals, including Science, Cell, Cell Host and Microbe, Immunity, and Plos Pathogens.


Council Members – January 2018 – December 2020

David Artis

David Artis received his Ph.D. from University of Manchester, United Kingdom in 1998. Since then Dr. Artis has pursued his research career in the United States, and was Professor at University of Pennsylvania until 2014. Currently, Dr. Artis is Michael Kors Professor of Immunology and Director of the Jill Roberts Institute for IBD Research at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University in New York City.

Dr. Artis is a highly regarded, prominent scientist whose work represents the most exciting, fast moving area of biomedical research. He investigates the interface between commensal bacterial populations and host immune responses. His laboratory has shown that inflammatory diseases such as IBD are profoundly affected by the resident bacteria in the Gut. And such inflammatory diseases are strongly regulated by the newly identified cell type, innate lymphoid cells. It is remarkable that in these efforts, Dr. Artis bridges preclinical research to patient based studies, skillfully executing translational research, critically required in the field. With his numerous and highly visible publications, Dr. Artis is a leader and bright star in the field.

His achievements have been recognized as a number of prestigious Young Investigator Awards, including those from AAI, CCFA, plus the Stanley Cohen Prize and the AAI-BD Biosciences Investigator Award. It is noteworthy that Professor Artis received the Young Investigator of the Year Award from the International Cytokine Society in 2007.

Dr. Artis has made important contributions to the activity of ICIS, in particular, he was the Chair of the 2016 ICIS annual meeting in San Francisco, and was instrumental in making the meeting a memorable success. He is a frequent invited speaker at ICIS annual meetings.


Hiroki Yoshida

Hiroki Yoshida is Professor, Division of Molecular and Cellular Immiunoscience, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University. Dr. Yoshida’s major interest is IL-27 and related cytokines. He was one of the firsts to discover the two roles of IL-27 – Th1 induction and immunosuppression. By taking advantage of IL-27Ra-deficient mice, which he generated, he has discovered various roles of IL-27; protection of the hosts from excessive inflammation during infection, suppression of so-called metabolic diseases by attenuating sterile inflammation underlying metabolic diseases, and so on. He has worked on ITAM-containing pattern-recognition receptors, finding their importance in immune responses during atopic dermatitis and others. He has also been interested in infection immunity against, especially, protozoa pathogens, including Leishmania, Trypanosoma, and Entamoeba. Recently, he has revealed special metabolic pathway in the mitochondria (mitosome) of Entamoeba, which may be a very potent target for drug discovery. See attached his CV (2011 – 2017).

He is an active member of the Japanese Society of Interferon and Cytokine Research (JSICR) since 2006, when he received “The encouragement award from the Japanese Society of Interferon and Cytokine Research”. He has worked as a board member of JSICR and also as an editor-in-chief for JSICR newsletter. He has been a member of ICIS since 2009, is on the Program Committee for Cytokines 2017 in Kanazawa, served on the meeting committee for the previous ISICR and is also an editorial board member for the journal “Cytokine”.
In addition to his activity as a society member as above, his research on IL-27 and other cytokines, ITAM receptors, and infection immunity against parasites has added a lot to the understandings of cytokine functions.


Nominating Committee – January 2018 – December 2020

Sonja Marie Best

Sonja Best received her Ph.D. from the Australian National University in 1999 and trained as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH. She is currently Senior Investigator at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, Hamilton, Montana, directing an independent laboratory. She is an international expert in the area of flavivirus interactions with innate immune responses mediated by interferon, as well as viral mechanisms of antagonism.

Dr. Best has done important work on flavivirus antagonism of type I interferon signaling. She first identified the nonstructural protein NS5 as a

potent and direct IFN antagonist and was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for her work on flavivirus suppression of innate immune responses in 2011. In addition, Dr. Best serves as a board member for Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Virology, and Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research.

Dr. Best has been active in her research communities and is known for her skills as well as her dedication to these activities.


Jean-Laurent Casanova

Jean-Laurent Casanova is professor and head of the St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases, and senior attending physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Casanova, an ICIS member since 2012, is best known for the discovery of a new group of genetic defects that predispose otherwise healthy individuals or populations to a single type of infection. His discoveries have altered a paradigm that has prevailed in this field for decades. These discoveries have shaped the specific working hypothesis that severe infectious diseases of childhood result from collections of rare single-gene variations. He discovered germline mutations in a variety of human cytokines, IFNs, their receptors and components of theor responsive pathways.

Dr. Casanova received his M.D. from Paris Descartes University and his Ph.D. in immunology from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris. While a professor of pediatrics at the Necker Hospital in Paris, he cofounded the Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases with his colleague Laurent Abel. Casanova joined Rockefeller in 2008 and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Professor Lucien Dautrebande Pathophysiology Foundation Prize, 2004, the Richard Lounsbery Award, 2008, the InBev Baillet-Latour Health Prize, 2011, the 2012 Milstein Award, the Robert Koch Award, 2014, the Sanofi–Institut Pasteur Award, 2014 and the Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award, American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2016. In 2015, he was elected both as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences and to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.


Thomas Decker
Thomas Decker, PhD is Professor of Immunobiology, Max F. Perutz Laboratories at the University of Vienna.
Scientific Education and Career History:

1976 – 1982
Study of Biology at the Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany

1982 – 1986
Doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology, Freiburg and the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology, Hannover, Germany. PhD awarded by the Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg.

1986 – 1987
Postdoctoral fellow at the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology, Hannover

1987 – 1990
Postdoctoral training at the Rockefeller University, New York, USA

1990 – 1993
Assistant professor and group leader, Fraunhofer Institute,Hannover

1992-1993
Visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm

since 1993
Group leader and Professor at the University of Vienna, tenured as full Professor of Immunobiology

since 2002.
2001-2009
Chair, Department of Microbiology and Genetics
Career-related Activities:
Since 1994
Consultant Boehringer Ingelheim (1994-2003); Sandoz (2002); Intercell (2004-2010), Pfizer (since 2010)
since 2002
Editorial Boards of Journal of Clinical Investigation (2002-2009), Journal of Immunology (2010-2015), Molecular and Cellular Biology (since 2012), Journal of Biological Chemistry (since 2015).
2012-2014
2017
Member advisory board Austrian Society of Allergology and Immunology
Elected president of the European macrophage and dendritic cell society (EMDS)
Since 1994
Conference Organization (Keystone, FEBS, International Cytokine Society, Semmering Vaccine Conferences, European Immunology Meeting, European Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Society
Research Interest:

  • Cytokine signaling (Jak-Stat)
  • Regulation of interferon-induced gene expression and chromatin organization
  • Regulation of interferon synthesis by RNA helicases
  • Interferons as immunomodulators in bacterial infection

Publications:
Total number of publications 140, h-factor=54, cited >12800 times, average citation per item 93.3[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

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