A Letter From the President

CIS President Jonathan BraunDear Colleagues:

I am honored to be writing to you as your new CIS President. Kate Sullivan has provided superb leadership over the past year, and CIS has undergone exciting change and growth. Let me summarize what has been accomplished.

In December, the CIS Council held a strategic planning session to consider how CIS and its membership could propel the growing role of immunology in understanding of organ-specific diseases, and the enormous potential of immunologic therapies. The new initiatives and priorities as outlined by the Council include:

One of our more exciting initiatives has been developing the WEBbook of Biologic Therapies on the CIS web site. This new endeavor, spearheaded by Marc Natter, CIS Communications Committee Chair, is intended to offer an authoritative compendium of information on biologic therapies. We envision this as a valuable public service targeted to the medical community at large, as well as a vehicle to increase the visibility of the CIS. In the future, we hope to expand the tables to include biologics in development. In addition to the biologic therapies tables, the Council plans to develop online CME and Maintenance of Certification modules.

In June at the FOCIS Annual Meeting in Boston, CIS sponsored three satellite symposia. The "Immunoassessment" Satellite Symposium is the second CIS satellite on the topic of immunoassessment and was designed to present new approaches to the assessment of immunologic responses. The "Improving Vaccination for Chronic Viral Infections" Symposium is the first CIS satellite on the topic of infectious diseases. The goal of this satellite was to introduce and discuss novel immune-modulatory strategies that could augment vaccine success based on recent findings in animal models and pave a way for their clinical translation. Finally, the "Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases Consortium" was the fourth CIS satellite on the topic of primary immunodeficiency diseases and this year the focus was on recent updates in the field of primary immunodeficiencies.

In 2008, CIS will hold three Summer Schools that address the range of activities of immunologists and foster continued education and mentoring of fellows and junior faculty in the United States and abroad and I am pleased that CIS is able to fund travel for all of the participants for all three schools. The School in Systemic Autoimmune Diseases, chaired by George Tsokos, was held April 2-6 in Boston, MA. Twenty-one fellows-in-training were selected from a pool of applicants and thirteen mentors were assigned to the fellows. The School in Hypersensitivity and Allergic Diseases, co-chaired by Thomas Platts-Mills and Alkis Togias, will be held August 21-24, 2008 in Park City, UT. This school is co-organized by CIS, AAAAI and the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation, NIAID. Twenty-five fellows-in-training and junior faculty were selected and ten mentors will be assigned to the participants. The Seventh Annual School in Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases, co-chaired by Charlotte Cunningham-Rundles and Kathleen Sullivan, will be held September 11-15, 2008 in Miami, FL. Ten faculty have been invited to participate and 32 fellows-in-training will be selected to participate. In response to the needs of the CIS members, we will also explore developing an Interventional Immunology Summer School.

Under the leadership of Andrew Saxon, the CIS journal, Clinical Immunology, continues to thrive. The latest impact factor was 3.6 and continues to rise and submissions continue to increase steadily. The journal has joined with FOCIS to publish a FOCIS Center of Excellence Short Analytical Review each month. A Strategic Planning session of the Editors was held during the FOCIS Annual Meeting to map out the future direction of the journal.

We remain a financially solid organization committed to adding value to our members' professional lives by continuing to offer opportunities such as the Summer Schools, Satellite Symposia and the Journal. We count on our established members to introduce the benefits of CIS to high-caliber, established scientists and promising, young scientists. The continued success of CIS is derived from its membership-you. As we grow by adding members of high scientific ability and reputation, we increase our ability to offer the best scientific programs and information to our members. You can direct prospective members to visit the CIS web site at www.clinimmsoc.org.

During the upcoming year, the CIS Council and committees will advance the ripest opportunities among the strategic initiatives. In particular, I anticipate that we will focus on advancing the web educational resource, an interventional immunology summer school, and an approach to more fully address needs of members involved in primary immunodeficiency diseases. If you have an idea for programming, the journal or the web site, or would like to volunteer to participate on a committee, Summer School or Satellite Symposium, please contact the CIS National Office at info@clinimmsoc.org.

As CIS continues to grow and expand, I look forward to working with the leadership and membership and I thank each of you for your participation in the Society.

Jonathan Braun, MD, PhD
CIS President