Please join us in person at “Frontiers in Innate Immunity and Cell Death”, the 3rd annual Symposium hosted by the Center of Excellence for Innate Immunity and Inflammation (CoE-III) at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, on Tuesday, November 4, 2025.
The innate immune system plays a critical role in infectious, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases and cancers. Despite this importance, our understanding of how the innate immune system recognizes and responds to diverse pathogens or danger signals to drive host defense, clear cancerous cells, regulate cell death pathways, control cytokine production, and engage the adaptive immune response remains limited. Furthermore, inborn errors in innate immune genes and aberrant innate immune signaling are key drivers of disease, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are incompletely understood, limiting our ability to therapeutically target these processes.
The 2025 Symposium will bring together an outstanding, international group of leading experts to share recent discoveries in innate immunity and cell death, featuring topics on the basic biology of innate immunity, interactions with adaptive immunity, the molecular diversity of immune mechanisms, immuno-oncology, neuroimmunology, the pathophysiology of inflammation, therapeutic applications, and more.
The CoE-III Symposium will be held in-person at St. Jude. While the previous CoE-III Symposia have been exclusive to the St. Jude research community, this year, we are excited to offer opportunities for external registrants to join us. We look forward to welcoming the innate immunity research community for robust discussions and interactions to support basic and translational research and advance cures.
- 
                            Registration fees: - St. Jude Employees: Complimentary
- External Attendees:
  - Trainees (Students and Postdoctoral Fellows): $35
- All Others (Principal Investigators, Research Staff, Industry Professionals): $100
 
 Registration deadline: October 24, 2025 Please Note: Capacity is limited. Registration will close once maximum capacity is reached. 
- 
                            - 
                            Time Event Location 7:30-8:20 am Breakfast MTC Lobby 8:20-8:30 am J. Paul Taylor, MD, PhD 
 WelcomeMTC Auditorium Session 1: Fundamental molecular mechanisms of immune activation 8:30-9:00 am Clare Bryant, PhD 
 New mechanisms in Toll-like receptor signalingMTC Auditorium 9:00-9:30 am Sun Hur, PhD 
 Innate immune mechanism for self vs. non-self RNA discriminationMTC Auditorium 9:30-10:00 am Mary O’Riordan, PhD 
 Remodeling the mitochondrial powerhouse for macrophage inflammation and host defenseMTC Auditorium 10:00-10:30 am Kenneth Murphy, MD, PhD 
 Functional DC subsetsMTC Auditorium 10:30-11:00 am Coffee Break MTC Lobby Session 2: Novel tools to study cell death and inflammation in disease 11:00-11:30 am Ramnik Xavier, MD, PhD 
 Spatial tissue maps to disease mechanismsMTC Auditorium 11:30 am-12:00 pm Ashley Haase, PhD 
 Visualizing PANoptosis and the PANoptosome in COVID-19 pneumonia and HIV infectionMTC Auditorium 12:00-2:00 pm Lunch and Meet the Editor MTC Lobby (additional lunch seating available in the Board Room) 12:15-1:00 pm Sri Devi Narasimhan, PhD 
 Cell - Meet the editor sessionMTC Conference Room 2 1:15-2:00 pm Kavitha Scranton, PhD 
 Immunity - Meet the editor sessionMTC Conference Room 2 Session 3: Genetic mutations in immunity driving disease 2:00-2:30 pm David Beck, MD, PhD 
 VEXAS Syndrome and Disorders of Ubiquitylation: Unchained inflammationMTC Auditorium 2:30-3:00 pm Hal Hoffman, MD 
 Mechanisms of NLRP3 Induced InflammationMTC Auditorium 3:00-3:30 pm Coffee Break MTC Lobby Session 4: Cell death in immunity 3:30-4:00 pm Lorenzo Galluzzi, PhD 
 Mitochondria at the hub of cell death and immunity in irradiated cancer cellsMTC Auditorium 4:00-4:30 pm Julie Magarian Blander, PhD 
 Immune consequences of inflammatory cell death in the intestinal epitheliumMTC Auditorium 4:30-5:00 pm Guy Salvesen, PhD 
 Evolving a caspase inflammatory locusMTC Auditorium 5:00-5:15 pm Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, PhD 
 Closing SpeechMTC Auditorium 
 
- 
                            
- 
                            - David Beck, MD, PhD
 Grossman School of Medicine; New York University
- Julie Magarian Blander, PhD
 Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University
- Clare Bryant, PhD
 University of Cambridge
- Lorenzo Galluzzi, PhD
 Fox Chase Cancer Center
- Ashley Haase, PhD
 University of Minnesota
- Hal Hoffman, MD
 UC San Diego; Rady Children’s Hospital
- Sun Hur, PhD
 Harvard Medical School; Boston Children's Hospital
- Kenneth Murphy, MD, PhD
 Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
- Mary O’Riordan, PhD
 University of Michigan Medical School
- Guy Salvesen, PhD
 Sanford Burnham Prebys
- Ramnik Xavier, MD, PhD
 Broad Institute; Harvard Medical School
 
- David Beck, MD, PhD
- 
                            Marlo Thomas Center Auditorium 
 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
 262 Danny Thomas Place
 Memphis, TN 38105
- 
                            - For your convenience, we have curated a selection of hotel options placing you in the heart of Memphis. Please note, these properties offer/require valet parking.
- While these recommendations provide a range of accommodations to suit different preferences, guests are not limited to these options.
 Marriott - The Westin Memphis Beale Street
- Courtyard Memphis Downtown
 Hyatt - Hyatt Centric
- Caption by Hyatt
 Hilton - Canopy by Hilton Memphis Downtown
- Hilton Garden Inn Memphis Downtown
 Privately-owned - The Peabody Memphis
- Hotel Napoleon
 
 
                    
                