Mye-InfoBank – Momentum in Collaborative InterACTION

Photo: © Mye-InfoBank 2023

How can Mye-InfoBank’s Working Groups (WGs) streamline their activities with each other to reach their mutual scientific goals more effectively? This was the key principle guiding the international researchers at the retreat-like atmosphere fostered by the local organisers, Yasin Kaymaz and Güneş Esendağli, at the annual conference held in Belek at the end of March 2023.

WG 2 Mye-SOP and WG 3 Mye-Disease initiated the formation of disease-specific groups with elected coordinators to explore possibilities of retrieving already available bio-samples – namely tissue, plasma and serum – in the areas of lung cancer, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, and inflammatory skin diseases, with WG 1 Mye-Matrix offering bioinformatic support in searching through available data bases.

Similarly, WG 2 is to assist WG 1 in cell annotation by defining experts for each of the immune cell sub-types – specifically dendritic cells, macrophages and neutrophils – in each of the diseases mentioned above.

The scientific communication team in WG 4 Mye-Dialogue reiterated its willingness to strengthen information flow both within and outside the COST Action and introduced new channels and ideas for Mye-InfoBank’s dissemination strategy.

A further exciting development is the drive to establish a CODEX technical group. The main advantages of this new working group are that its members can share lists of working antibodies being used in the various institutions as well as analysis workflows. Mye-InfoBank has received additional funding from COST to set this up during the current grant period.

Hands-on collaboration within the network is to be boosted by the upcoming short-term scientific mission (STSM) clusters on the standardisation of staining protocols for tissue macrophages in Badalona in May 2023, on the immunostaining of circulating and tissue-infiltrating neutrophils to facilitate neutrophil phenotypic and functional biomarker development in DACI in Brussels in June 2023, on the standardised immunostaining for dendritic cells’ markers in chronically inflamed and neoplastic tissues in Limerick also in June 2023, and on standardised minimal tissue myeloid marker panels in Oslo in September 2023.

Photo: © Mye-InfoBank 2023

Meeting Hosts: Yasin Kaymaz and Güneş Esendağli

Location: Papillon Ayscha Hotel, İleribaşı Mevkii, Belek Turizm Merkezi, Belek (Antalya), TR