DC2026 PROGRAM
18th International Symposium on Dendritic Cells
11–14 October 2026 · Kona Kai Resort, San Diego · All times in Pacific Standard Time (PST)
This program is subject to change. Please check back for updates.
Sunday, 11 October
Opening day · Registration, Inaugural Keynote & Plenary 1
1:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Registration Open
3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Welcome Remarks
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Inaugural Keynote Speaker
Keynote
3:30 PM
Chromatin-mediated control of dendritic cell function
Will be announced next week
4:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Coffee/Tea Break & Networking
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Plenary 1: DC Development, Lineage Specification & Transcriptional Control
Plenary
5:00 PM
Title coming soon
Kenneth Murphy
5:25 PM
Title coming soon
Florent Ginhoux
5:50 PM
The transcription factor regulating tumor-associated macrophages in pancreatic cancer
Tomohiko Tamura
6:15 PM
Promoter-dependent IRF8 induction governs subset-specific cDC2 reprogramming during infection with intracellular pathogens
Daisuke Kurotaki
6:30 PM
Infection-specific regulation of cDC2poiesis shapes dendritic cell subset responses
Kyle T. Cunningham
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Welcome Reception
Monday, 12 October
Plenary 2 & 3 · Parallel Symposia A & B · Ralph Steinman Legacy Symposium
7:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Registration Open
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Plenary 2: DC Functional Heterogeneity: Subsets, Identity & Function
Plenary
8:00 AM
Surveillance of intestinal antigens by functionally diverse antigen-presenting cells
Dan Littman
8:25 AM
Thetis cells: Defining the Ontogeny and Function of a Novel APC Lineage
Chrysothemis Brown
8:50 AM
Rethinking Immaturity: Signals Shaping Dendritic Cell Function in Early Life
Barbara Schraml
9:15 AM
Epigenetic Heterogeneity in Dendritic Cell Subsets Underlies Immune Response Variation
Mya Gough
9:20 AM
Thymic myeloid cell heterogeneity reveals a novel population of perivascular transitional dendritic cells with antigen sampling capacity
Matous Voboril
9:25 AM
Defining the factors governing intratumoral cDC1-CD8 T cell clusters
Maria Parra Reyes
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Coffee/Tea Break & Networking
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Plenary 3: Tissue Surveillance, Migration & Immune Coordination
Plenary
10:30 AM
Title coming soon
Sophie Janssens
10:55 AM
Environment Patrolling by colonic Dendritic Cells
Ana-Maria Lennon-Dumenil
11:20 AM
Title coming soon
Shannon Turley
11:45 AM
Neuronal control of dendritic cell migration drives sex-biased skin immunity
Konrad Knöpper
12:00 PM
Influence of cancer cell mechanical properties on dendritic cell sentinel function
Yazmina Quintana Perez
12:05 PM
Macrophage nibbling without killing: a novel endosomal route for CD8 T cell priming
Amy C Fan
12:10 PM
Chemokine-Driven Spatial Niches Regulate Distinct APC-T cell Neighbourhoods within the Human Lymph Node
Marcus Ooi
12:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Lunch & Poster Session 1
2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Parallel Symposium A: DC Biology, Technologies & Therapeutic Opportunities
Parallel A
2:30 PM
Title coming soon
Elena Tomasello
2:55 PM
Using mRNA-LNP technology to manipulate conventional dendritic cell biology
Justine Mintern
3:10 PM
The tumor-sentinel lymph node immuno-migratome reveals CCR7⁺ dendritic cells drive response to sequenced immunoradiotherapy
Robert Saddawi-Konefka
3:25 PM
Fine-Tuned Help: Orchestrating Dendritic Cell-T Cell Crosstalk in Antitumor Immunity
Eynav Klechevsky
3:40 PM
Single-cell spatial transcriptomics of fixed, paraffin-embedded biopsies links dendritic cell-enriched gut-associated lymphoid aggregates to an archetype of vedolizumab non-response
Alexis J Combes
3:45 PM
Revisiting Dendritic Cells in Autoimmunity
Juan Villar Vesga
3:50 PM
Large Scale Production of Human Conventional Type I Dendritic Cells for Cancer Immunotherapy
Sreekumar Balan
2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Parallel Symposium B: DC Metabolism & Cellular Programming of Function & Fate
Parallel B
2:30 PM
Title coming soon
David Sancho
2:55 PM
Conventional dendritic cells exhibit tissue-specific characteristics that are regulated by mitochondrial metabolism
Stefanie K Wculek
3:10 PM
O-GlcNAcylation regulates dendritic cell transcriptional stability
Jose A Villadangos
3:25 PM
IL-21 as a central driver of immunosenescence: linking pulmonary dysfunction and neurodegeneration
Anshu Agrawal
3:40 PM
Dying cell-derived polyamines modulate dendritic cell phagocytosis and adaptive priming
Chang Y Moon
3:45 PM
Dendritic cell metabolic reprogramming of O-GlcNAcylation shapes type 2 immunity
Jose Javier Fernandez
3:50 PM
Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Inhibition Activates Mito-calcium/mtROS/IL-12 Axis in Dendritic Cells to Promote Tumor Suppression
Mridula Prakash Menon
4:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Coffee/Tea Break & Networking
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Ralph Steinman Legacy Symposium: Foundational Discoveries that Shaped the Field
Legacy Symposium
5:00 PM
Title coming soon
Jacques Banchereau
5:25 PM
Title coming soon
Ira Mellman
5:50 PM
Transcription factor Etv3 controls the tolerogenic function of dendritic cells
Nicholas M Adams
7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Dinner on Your Own
Tuesday, 13 October
Plenary 4 & 5 · Parallel Symposia C & D · Trainee Session · Conference Dinner
7:00 AM – 5:30 PM
Registration Open
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Plenary 4: DCs in Skin Immunity: Function, Communication & Adaptation
Plenary
8:00 AM
What Makes a Dendritic Cell? Lessons from Langerhans Cells
Clare Bennett
8:25 AM
Commensal-DC interactions reinforce early life tolerance at the skin barrier
Tiffany Scharschmidt
8:50 AM
Title coming soon
Laura Mackay
9:15 AM
Sequential priming by distinct dendritic cell subsets shapes effector CD4 T cell fate
Yosuke Kumamoto
9:30 AM
Distinct dendritic cell subsets drive sequential T cell priming phases
Enrico Dotta
9:35 AM
Langerhans cells fine-tune axonal guidance of nociceptor neurons in health and disease
Yonatan Ganor
9:40 AM
Characterization of type-2 dendritic cell populations in skin
Olivier Lamiable
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Coffee/Tea Break & Networking
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Plenary 5: DCs in Mucosal Immunity, Homeostasis & Host Defense
Plenary
10:30 AM
Title coming soon
William Agace
10:55 AM
Distinct antigen-presenting cells instruct divergent microbiota-specific T cell fates in the intestinal immune system
Daniel Mucida
11:20 AM
Title coming soon
Marco Colonna
11:45 AM
Dysbiosis-induced expansion of AXL-positive inflammatory type 3 dendritic cells triggers pre-clinical autoimmunity
Roxane Tussiwand
12:00 PM
STAT1 signalling shapes the function of type 2 conventional dendritic cells in lungs of weanling mice
Kaushikk Ravi Rengarajan
12:05 PM
RORγt+ Dendritic Cells are a distinct lymphoid-derived lineage
Patrick Fernandes Rodrigues
12:10 PM
GM-CSF and specific type 2 cytokines induce CD103+ and CD301b+ cell states in cDC1s and cDC2s
Diana Dudziak
12:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Lunch & Poster Session 2
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Parallel Symposium C: DCs in Infection & Host Defense
Parallel C
2:30 PM
Dendritic cell functional programming by IRE1 endoribonuclease activity
Fabiola Osorio
2:55 PM
Plasmacytoid dendritic cell adaptations upon viral infection: heterogeneity, functional loss and fate conversion
Carolina Chiale
3:10 PM
Dendritic Cell Diversity During Blood Stage of Murine Malaria
Fernando B Sulczewski
3:25 PM
Defining the role of human anogenital antigen-presenting cells in HIV transmission
Andrew N Harman
3:40 PM
Inflammatory signals during viral infection and sepsis impact dendritic cell development
Regine J. Dress
3:45 PM
Deciphering the mechanisms underlying human plasmacytoid dendritic cell function and exhaustion
Dina Zangwill
3:50 PM
Functional heterogeneity of splenic DC2 subsets during acute LCMV infection driven by subset identity
Dimitrios Starfas
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Parallel Symposium D: DCs in Tolerance, Allergy, Autoimmunity & Chronic Inflammation
Parallel D
2:30 PM
Title coming soon
Edgar Engleman
2:55 PM
Pleiotropic IL-10 can drive opposite effects in dendritic cells following MHC-II restricted, antigen-specific tolerogenic immunotherapy
Rebecca Leylek
3:10 PM
SIRPα regulates homeostatic maturation of Notch2-dependent cDC2 and development of autoimmunity
Yasuyuki Saito
3:25 PM
Dissecting IL-10 signaling in myeloid antigen-presenting cells during colorectal tumor development
Björn E. Clausen
3:40 PM
Oxidized mitochondrial DNA drives pDC-dependent Tfh differentiation in autoimmunity
Hongxu Xian
3:45 PM
Spatially organised IFNγ-instructed dendritic cell niches sustain human chronic inflammation
Andreas Schlitzer
3:50 PM
Reprogramming suppression: CD40-activated dendritic cells drive Treg-to-effector conversion
Vivien I Maltez
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Coffee & Trainee Session (Meet the Editor)
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Free Afternoon
7:00 PM – 10:30 PM
End of Conference Networking Dinner
Wednesday, 14 October
Plenary 6 & 7 · Translational Roundtable · Closing Keynote & Awards
7:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Registration Open
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Plenary 6: DCs in Cancer Immunity & Therapy
Plenary
8:00 AM
Title coming soon
Santiago Zelenay
8:25 AM
Title coming soon
Max Krummel
8:50 AM
Title coming soon
Miriam Merad
9:15 AM
Dissecting hierarchical dendritic cell–T cell interactions in tumour immunity using in vivo enzymatic labelling
Aleksey Chudnovskiy
9:30 AM
Context-Dependent DC2 States in Human Cancer
Kristen Radford
9:45 AM
Regulation of anti-cancer immunity by a natural killer cell – dendritic cell innate immune axis
Kevin C Barry
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Coffee/Tea Break & Networking
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Plenary 7: Translating DC Biology into Therapies: Vaccines & Beyond
Plenary
10:30 AM
Title coming soon
Karolina Palucka
10:55 AM
Title coming soon
Shalin Naik
11:20 AM
Inducing lymphoid niches across cancers by tumor-to-dendritic cell reprogramming
Filipe Pereira
11:45 AM
Tim-3–Targeted Vaccines Overcome Tumor Immunosuppression and Reduce cDC1 Dependence to Elicit Potent Anti-Tumor Immunity
Aimin Jiang
12:00 PM
Spatiotemporal Coordination of NK Cells and CTLs Drives Remodeling of Poorly T Cell–Infiltrated Tumor Microenvironments
Shin-ichiro SF Fujii
12:15 PM
CAR-DC1: A novel next-generation dendritic cell therapy for targeting solid tumours
Shengbo Zhang
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Lunch
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Translational Roundtable: From DC Biology to Therapeutics
Roundtable
1:30 PM
Panel discussion: Bridging fundamental dendritic cell biology to clinical therapeutic application
Panellists TBA
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
Closing Keynote
Keynote
2:30 PM
Title coming soon
Will be announced next week
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Awards & Closing Ceremony