30 years ago, Charles Janeway, Jr. and others established a conceptual framework which dominates our understanding of immunological recognition up to this day: pattern recognition receptors would bind to molecular patterns that are typical for certain pathogens and microbes, triggering an immune response to destroy them. Our current understanding of how the immune system works, in particular in light of its interactions with the microbiota, is much more complex. This workshop will bring together leading researchers from different disciplines to discuss microbiota-host interactions via the immune system and the notion of immunological recognition.

Thomas Bazin (Assistant Professor of Gastroenterology, INSERM, Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris, France)

Thomas Bosch (Professor of General Zoology at Kiel University, Germany)

Nadine Cerf-Bensussan (Director of Research INSERM, IMAGINE Institut and University Paris Descartes, France)

Hiutung Chu (Assistant Professor of Pathology, University of California San Diego, USA)

Gérard Eberl (Professor of Immunology, Institut Pasteur, France)

Andrew Inkpen (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Brandon University, Canada)

Rob Knight (Professor at the University of California San Diego, Co-founder of the American Gut Project, the Earth Microbiome Project, and founding Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation) – via video call

François Leulier (Director of Research CNRS, Institut of Functional Genomics, Lyon, France)

Maria Rescigno (Professor of Pathology, Humanitas University, Milan, Italy)

This workshop is part of the Immunity, DEvelopment and the Microbiota (IDEM) project, an ERC-funded project located at the interface of philosophy of biology and biology (ERC Grant #637647, PI: Thomas Pradeu).