NeuroImmunoCon 2025

The research area of neuroimmunology is a broad scientific interplay of cellular interactions and clinical symptoms, influence of infectious diseases and hereditary factors - immunology and neurobiology.     Hosting the “NeuroImmunoCon2025: Navigating Autoimmune Interactions in the Nervous System” conference in Bochum on September 23-24, 2025, enabled to bring together all enthusiasts of neuroimmunology. This event reached out to students, PhD candidates but also senior scientists with the chance to address research questions to all joining experts.
Introducing the event, a first symposium on the basic understanding our immune system included talks of conference Co-Host Dr. Melissa Sgodzai (St. Josef Hospital Bochum), Prof. Dr. Thomas Korn (TU München) and Prof. Dr. Jeremias Motte (St. Josef Hospital Bochum).Following up on this, many young research colleagues presented their own work in front of a large audience during the first poster session. The poster presentations brought up many exciting conversations that lead right into the brainstorming sessions, inviting all interested scientists into broad research discussions.
The first conference day was closed with a symposium session, which highlighted the axis between our intestinal immune and nervous system with our entire body system. In autoimmune diseases, severe changes can be observed in the patients’ intestine early in the disease progression, which put huge research interest to this topic. This symposium was introduced by a keynote talk of Prof. Dr. Vijay Kuchroo (Gene Lay Institute, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA), who elaborated on the communication between immune cells and neurons within our intestine. Followingly, Baffour Sarpong and Pia Renk, both from St. Josef Hospital Bochum, presented work on the TRPV1 receptor and its role in the central as well as the peripheral nervous system.
Starting off our second conference day, the main focus of the first symposium were the myelinating cells of the peripheral nervous system: Schwann cells. These cells produce myelin proteins to protect our nerves but become main targets in autoimmune diseases of the peripheral nervous system. During this session, Prof. Dr. Gerd Meyer zu Hörste (University
Hospital Münster) and Prof. Dr. Claire Jacob (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) made the introduction to Schwann cell biology in disease before Niklas Rilke (St. Josef Hospital Bochum) gave insights on the immunological role of Schwann cells and keynote speaker Dr. Peter Arthur-Farraj (Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University, London) completed this symposium with his expertise on repair-Schwann cells.
In the afternoon of the second conference day, a second symposium followed up on a great second half of poster presentations and subsequent discussions. The last symposium of this neuroimmunological meeting highlighted the clinical presentation of inflammatory neuropathies. Giving an overview about different types of autoimmune neuropathies, PD Dr. Kalliopi Pitarokoili opened up this session, which was followed by PD Dr. Fabian Preisner and Dr. Rafael Klimas, who gave insights about the use of MRI and biomarkers in the diagnosis of chronic inflammatory neuropathies.
The ”NeuroImmunoCon2025” proved to be a resounding success, uniting researchers across all career stages in vibrant scientific exchange that advanced both fundamental understanding and clinical insight in neuroimmunology.

This event was organized by Niklas Rilke. If you have any questions about the event, she will be happy to hear from you via e-mail.