BSI Congress 2022 prize winners

Bright Sparks in Immunology

Sponsored by Miltenyi Biotec

Congratulations to the winners of our Bright Sparks sessions at the British Society for Immunology Congress 2022. This event took place on the first afternoon of BSI Congress 2022 and aims to showcase the research of early career researchers as well as providing them with the experience of giving talks about their work to a large audience. The 2022 winners are:

PhD category

• First place: Fabian Fischer, University of Oxford, UK – TBK1 and IKKe act like a master break to limit premature inflammatory cell death pathways in activated macrophages
• Second place: Chi Hao Thomas Yip, CRUK Cambridge Institute, UK – Group 2 Innate Lymphoid Cells influence pancreatic stromal cell composition in homeostasis and pancreatic cancer
• Third place: Mariana Pereira da Costa, Francis Crick Institute, UK – CXCR4 downregulation is a critical checkpoint for bone marrow exit of dendritic cell progenitors at steady state and inflammation

Postdoc category

• First place: Dr Lauren Evans, King's College London, UK – CD1d-dependent rewiring of lipid metabolism in macrophages regulates responses to innate signals
• Second place: Dr Weidong Jing, Australian National University, Australia – Clostridium septicum alpha-toxin activates the NLRP3 inflammasome by engaging glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored proteins
• Third place: Dr Hannah Bradford, University College London, UK – Thioredoxin pivots B cell responses towards an immunoregulatory fate by maintaining mitochondrial health and low oxidative stress

The BSI's official journals Clinical & Experimental Immunology, Immunotherapy Advances and Discovery Immunology were proud to sponsor four poster prizes. On behalf of all the editors, we extend our congratulations to the following winners:

• Eleni Papachristoforou, University of Edinburgh, UK Single cell transcriptomics defines pathogenic macrophages in murine liver fibrosis (P-053)
• Michal Zulcinski, University of Leeds, UK Deconvolution of bulk transcriptome from temporal artery biopsies reveals immune cell landscape of inflammatory infiltrates in giant cell arteritis (P-059)
• Anna Ahlback, University of Edinburgh, UK Ontogeny and structure of macrophages in the postnatal synovial lining (P-0176)
• Sofia Hain, University of Birmingham, UK Defining CNS-resident myeloid cell heterogeneity in the fungal-infected brain (P-265)

Our special poster category, 'Education, public engagement and EDI' showcased the wide range of innovative techniques our members use within higher education immunology teaching, novel approaches to engaging with the public on immunology and best practice examples of promoting diversity and inclusion within immunology. Our congratulations go to the winner:

• Hannah Bialic, Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, UK Parasite Street Science: Addressing African Sleeping Sickness Through Street Theatre (P-083)

We would like to thank the Australia and New Zealand Society for Immunology and their official journal Immunology & Cell Biology for co-sponsoring a poster prize. International collaboration between immunological societies is vital for fostering scientific exchange and building global networks. Together, we congratulate:

• Dr Stephanie Hanna, Cardiff University, UK Intradermal injection of diabetes autoantigens results in recruitment of clonally expanded antigen specific T cells to skin and draining lymph nodes (P-033)

Finally, we would also like to thank the Federation of Clinical Immunological Societies (FOCIS) for kindly sponsoring one of our poster prizes. Together with FOCIS, we congratulate:

• Leonor Rodrigues, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), UK Cancer associated fibroblasts modulate natural killer cell function in the tumour microenvironment (P-384)

BSI Congress 2022 would not be possible without the support of our generous sponsors. We would like to thank Beckman Coulter for sponsoring Poster session 1.

You can read the abstracts for all posters presented on the BSI Congress 2022 website.