GA2LEN/EAACI Allergy School
“Allergy and the Skin: what’s new?”
23-25 July, 2009, Norwich, UK
The Allergy School supported by GA2LEN and EAACI took part in the University of East Anglia in a wonderful city called Norwich. The University campus welcomed 100 participants from 20 different countries to discuss the latest achievements in the field of cutaneous allergy and related subjects. There were six educational sessions on the main topics “Urticaria”, “Contact allergy”, “Laboratory to patient-how to get the best from tests”, “Advances in genetics of allergy and related disorders”, “Update in cutaneous allergy management” and “What’s new in allergy and inflammation?”. On the second and last days there were two free communications and poster sessions also during which young participants had a great opportunity to share their own experience and discuss their work with other young colleagues and seniors.
The head of the organizing committee Prof. Clive Grattan (Norwich) who is also the new secretary of EAACI Dermatology section welcomed all invitees and participants, after which Prof. Torsten Zuberbier (Berlin) had a lecture explaining What’s EAACI, Who is GA2lEN and Who are GA2LEN partners and collaborating centers. During his next lecture he told about guidelines for diagnosis of urticaria. In the first session Prof. Clive Grattan talked about autologous serum skin test in chronic urticaria. He explained why a positive test should not be regarded as diagnostic of autoimmune urticaria but a negative ASST can be taken as a good test of idiopathic diseases.
The next session called “Contact allergy” was devoted to the “Patch testing”. At the end of this session we had an expert view during which Prof. Stephan Durham (London) had a great explanation of allergen Immunotherapy. He assumed that new knowledge on mechanisms of immunotherapy is important for the development of immunoassays to predict efficacy of new approaches. The second day of the school started with the lecture of Prof. John McGrath (London). He gave a talk about “gene hunting” which is the process of identifying genes in uncharacterized inherited skin diseases. It was followed by third and forth educational sessions where the invited speakers were talking about allergy diagnosis, anaphylaxis, food allergy, hereditary angio-edema types I-III, filaggrin mutations in atopic dermatitis and mutations in mastocytosis. Between these two sessions we had an expert view where Dr Diana Church (Southampton) and Prof. Tony Frew (Brighton) were talking about atopic eczema. The last two lectures of the day were devoted to the cutaneous allergy provided by Dr Marta Ferrer (Pamplona) and Prof. Martin Church (Berlin).
After that the participants had an opportunity to use the UEA Sports Centre facilities or go to the city center to see the picturesque places or enjoy shopping. In the evening of the same day all we had very well organized drinks reception in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts of UEA. After that the course dinner was accompanied by a talk of the guest speaker, Prof. Peter Liss (Norwich) who was talking about diagnosis and management of climate change.
The last day of the school started with a lecture of Dr Peter Schmid-Grendelmeier (Zurich) who is the new chair of EAACI Dermatology section. It was about atopic eczema. He also talked about anti CD20 (rituximab) treatment which improves atopic eczema. The second lecture was made by Dr Elena Borzova (Norwich) who is the organizer of the school together with Prof. Clive Grattan. Her lecture was about the management of chronic urticaria. The last session was about atopic dermatitis and inflammation. We had a chance to listen Dr Graham Ogg (Oxford), Prof. Gideon Lack (London) and Dr Helen Lachmann (London).
After poster walking and delicious lunch we participated in the closing ceremony and prizes were given to the winners. Then in the evening all participants had a great opportunity to enjoy the polo match in Newmarket city which was accompanied with traditional drinks and asado (barbeque) at Hare park Stud.
Ms Lilit Hovhannisyan, PhD student
Official Representative of
European Academy of Allergology
and Clinical Immunology Dermatology section
Junior Member Working Group
Last updated 20 October 2014