Research & Treatments
2021 IPPF INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM
September 19-21 T
PEMPHIGUS AND PEMPHIGOID: LOST IN TRANSLATION?
he IPPF is assisting in the planning of a Scientific Meeting and Satellite Symposium to the 50th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR) on September 19, 2021. Along with the IPPF, “Pemphigus and Pemphigoid: Lost in Translation?” is being organized by Dario Didona, Rudiger Eming, Jens Waschke, Barbara Horvath, Luca Borradori, and Michael Hertl. IPPF Executive Director Kevin Mead interviewed Michael Hertl about the significance of the meeting and the PEGASUS research project being conducted in Germany. Kevin Mead (KM): Why do scientists, researchers, and clinicians need to meet? Michael Hertl (MH): Bullous diseases, and the research into them, are global. There are multiple sites involved in research here in Germany, and the same is the case in the US. Elsewhere, from Japan and China to Iran and from Finland to Spain, great work is being done. We need to get together and communicate and discuss the research, the findings, and the possible
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Quarterly | Spring 2021
applications to therapy development. These frank and open discussions are also a part of the requirements of the PEGASUS project—part of the funding for the project is to provide a subsidy for this symposium. The PEGASUS project is “a consortium of basic researchers and clinician-scientists with a long-standing interest in pemphigus and immunological research who will aim at dissecting key events in the immunological induction and maintenance phase of pemphigus vulgaris.” KM: Can you give more details about the PEGASUS project? MH: PEGASUS is a project with funding from the German equivalent of the US National Institutes of Health. The overall goal is to better understand the immunological regulation of the production of IgG autoantibody production, and to look for indications as to how this can then be translated into clinical practice with patients. Moreover, the physiology and pathology of epidermal adhesion is studied in detail. It is designed to look at pemphigus in three stages:
www.pemphigus.org
