NEIC 2026 Preliminary Program

Friday, November 13

6:00 – 8:00 pm       Speaker and Organizer Dinner (Catered by MBL)

6:00 – 8:00 pm       Meeting Participant Dinner (Swope Dining Hall)

Saturday, November 14

8:00 - 10:00 am       Breakfast (Swope Center Dining Hall)

9:00 - 9:45 am        Registration (for those who arrive Saturday) and Coffee (Lillie Building Lobby)

9:45 - 10:00 am       Opening Remarks by NEIC co-founder Henry Wortis (Tufts University)

Session I: Innate Immunity and Host Defense

10:00 – 10:30 am    Jianbin Ruan, UConn Health

‍ Structural and Molecular Control of GSDME-Mediated Pyroptosis

10:30 – 11:00 am    Partha Biswas, Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine

‍ ‍Neutrophils Pack Their Own Lunch: Fueling the Fight Against Infection

11:00 – 11:30 am     Shruti Sharma, Tufts University

‍ ‍The Indispensable Role of Innate Immunity in Tissue Homeostasis

11:30 – 11:45 am    Coffee Break (Lillie Building Lobby)

11:45 – 12:00 pm    Abstract Selected Talk

12:00 – 12:15 pm    Abstract Selected Talk

12:15 – 12:30 pm    Group Picture (Lillie Building Entrance)

12:30 – 1:30 pm     Lunch Break (Swope Center Dining Hall)

Session II: Adaptive Immune Regulation

1:30 – 2:00 pm      Gowthaman Uthaman, UMass Chan Medical School

‍ ‍ What Makes T Follicular Helper Cells Proallergic? An Innate Spark for Allergic Immunity

2:00 – 2:30 pm     Nikhil Joshi, Yale University

‍ ‍ Studying T cell immunology in engineered mouse models

2:30 – 3:00 pm     Margie Ackerman, Dartmouth College

‍ ‍ The best Swiss army knife has to stay pocket friendly: Engineering antibody function and pharmacokinetics to prevent infectious disease

3:00 – 3:15 pm      Coffee Break (Lillie Building Lobby)

3:15 – 3:45 pm      Harikesh Wong, MIT/Ragon/Harvard University

‍ ‍ TBD

3:45 – 4:00 pm     Abstract Selected Talk

4:00 – 4:15 pm      Abstract Selected Talk

4:15 – 4:30 pm      Abstract Selected Talk

4:30 – 5:30 pm     Keynote Lecture: Michael Brenner, Brigham/Harvard Medical School

‍ ‍ Redefining the immunopathology of RA in the single cell era

5:30 – 6:00 pm    Poster Setup (Swope Center)

5:30 – 7:00 pm     Dinner (Swope Center Dining Hall)

7:00 – 9:30 pm     Poster Sessions & Craft Beer Tasting Sponsored by STEMCELL Technologies (Swope Center 2nd Floor Foyer)

Sunday, November 15

8:00 – 9:00 am     Breakfast (Swope Center Dining Hall)

8:00 – 9:00 am    Room Checkout

Session III: Mucosal Immunology Sponsored by the Society for Mucosal Immunology

9:00 – 9:30 am    Lalit Beura, Brown University

Developmental Programming of Resident Memory CD8 T cells in the Female Reproductive Mucosa

9:30 – 10:00 am   Pawan Kumar, Stony Brook University

Rewiring the Intestinal Niche: IL-17A as a Master Regulator of Epithelial Plasticity and Post-Injury Repair

10:00 – 10:30 am  Kamal Khanna, NYU

Nerve- and Airway-Associated Macrophages as Rheostats of Pulmonary Inflammation

10:30 – 10:45 am  Coffee Break (Lillie Building Lobby)

10:45 – 11:00 am   Abstract Selected Talk

11:00 – 11:15 am      Abstract Selected Talk

11:15 – 11:30 am      Abstract Selected Talk

11:30 – 12:30 pm    Keynote Lecture: Gretchen Diehl, MSKCC

Microbial Drivers of Barrier Protective Immunity

12:30 – 1:00 pm    Concluding Remarks and Trainee Awards