Conference

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This conference is for researchers, students, policy makers, media, and anybody with an interest in non-specific effects of vaccines

Deadline for registration has been extended to 26 October 2022

Link to Pre-conference statement

Read more about accomodation in Odense →

Read more about Odense as a destination →

Link to view and download our programme →

Optimmunize: Improving the beneficial effects of vaccines.

In 2020, just before the pandemic hit, the world’s 1st conference on non-specific and sex-differential effects of vaccines was held in Cambridge, UK: Optimmunize: Improving the beneficial effects of vaccines (read more).

We had 100 participants from around the world and our meeting was heralded as a great success: the evaluations were overwhelmingly positive; many expressed that it was the best conference they had attended in years. 

At that 2020 meeting we discussed whether vaccines exhibiting beneficial non-specific effects have a role to enhance immunity in the interim ahead of SARS-CoV-2-specific vaccine availability. Subsequently, many of us who had attended the conference initiated randomized trials to test this hypothesis; results are anticipated in the coming months. 

There have been other exciting developments in the field that emphasize the need for a follow-up conference. Accordingly, we are now planning for
‘Optimmunize 2022’ to take place in Denmark, at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Southern Denmark, from  November 9-11, 2022. 

Our intent is to attract eminent international research scientists, policy makers, journal editors and major foundations to engage in open-minded and fulsome discussions surrounding non-specific and sex-differential effects of vaccines, and how emerging knowledge may be applied for improved public health. 

We will discuss and explore various aspects of the non-specific effects of vaccines, including their impact on neonates and infants, how generalisable and durable these effects are, the implications for geriatric medicine, and why non-specific effects should differ between sexes and across the lifespan. The objective is to have an open and transparent discussion of the science, while focusing on how to further optimize the use of vaccines.

We would like to encourage networking and discussion and welcome particularly young researchers to engage with speakers and fellow delegates. We invite early career scientists to prepare one critical question relevant to the meeting topics.

Further reading: