ARTICLE
Dear members of the ECS, dear readers of ECN, dear colleagues, dear friends, The European Cytokine Society (ECS) aims at firm (close) interactions between (European) cytokinologists. The trigger for collaboration is often the complementary in expertise as well as the need to exchange reagents and scientific ideas. To maximally stimulate interaction on the european continent, but also amongst cytokinologists worldwide, the ECS regularly sponsors (e.g. through travel grants) international meetings such as the recent "Cytokines and Interferons 2002" congress, jointly organized by the ICS, ISICR, ECS, SLB in Torino, October 6-10, 2002.
In addition, the ECS organizes focussed workshops, e.g. between national immunological societies in Europe. In this context, Didier Fradelizi, secretary-treasurer of the ECS, organizes (since the early days of our Society) every other year a winter conference on immunity in the French Alps. A. Mantovani, past president of the ECS and myself took this opportunity to co-organize a workshop on " Chemokines " which will take place in spring 2003 (March 25-28). For this purpose we succeeded to attract several word leaders in the field of chemokines and of course everybody is welcome to this special event on the 10th anniversary of the ECS (see the annoucement in this issue on second cover).
It remains, however, our goal to keep the ECS as an informal body, a club of friends, rather than a strong society with strict bylaw, competing with other international societies. Nevertheless, we remain open to everybody and to all suggestions or new initiatives favoring scientific interaction and exchange on the European continent and all over the world.
I thank the members of the ECS for their continuous support but also all of you attending what is going to be an exciting meeting.
J. Van Damme, Rega Institute and University Leuven, President of the European Cytokine Society
|
Printable version