On Friday, June 13, UConn Health hosted the third biannual Immunology, Metabolism, and Nutritional Sciences Symposium, with researchers presenting and discussing their cutting-edge work in these interconnected fields.
Anthony Vella, the Boehringer Ingelheim Chair in Immunology at UConn Health, and Ji-Young Lee, head of the UConn Department of Nutritional Sciences, have co-organized the symposium every two years since 2019. The event fuses their two disciplines – the study of the immune system and the science of nutrition – and considers the unique scientific potential that is unlocked at this intersection.
“You really have to have an integrated understanding of multiple systems,” Vella says. “The immune system engages the metabolic pathways, and everyone knows that metabolism and the immune system are impacted by nutrition. We’re trying to set the stage for integrating these ideas into a better understanding of how to really effectively prompt the immune system to fight disease.”
Each iteration of the symposium has a distinct focus, says Vella, reflecting trends in scholarship and collaborative efforts between the two schools. In 2019, for instance, the focus was on the gut microbiome; this year, immunology took center stage, riding a wave of recent breakthroughs in the field.