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European Federation For Immunogenetics
NEWSLETTER September 2021 - Issue 95
………… . . from the EFI President
Dear EFI members,
It is with pleasure that I write my first enjoyment in your new roles. My appre- Nantes meeting will be the first confer-
newsletter report as EFI President. I ciation is sent to the chairs that are ence organised by the EFI appointed
am honoured to take on the position stepping down: Andrea Harmer, Kath- professional conference organiser
of President of our exceptional society arina Fleischhauer and Falko Heine- (PCO) Guarant. The EFI secretariat
EFI. Thank you to everyone that has mann. Thank you for all the work you and myself have established a regu-
supported me on my journey to this have undertaken in support of EFI and lar meeting with the PCO and the local
position. I wish you well with your future profes- organisers to ensure optimum commu-
On behalf of all the EFI membership, sional activities. nication between involved parties, and
I wish to thank Joannis Mytilineos, continued success with future EFI con-
our now Past President, for his excel- This is the first newsletter since our ferences.
lent presidency over the last three virtual EFI conference which was held
years and especially for his thoughtful jointly with the British Society for His-
handover to myself. Under Joannis’s tocompatibility and Immunogenetics.
tenure, improved communication chan- Normally the EFI President congratu-
nels within the Executive Committee lates the organisers on the (always)
and between the other EFI committees successful EFI conference. This is a
were implemented, which enabled us little strange for me to do, as I was
all to respond quickly to how we con- one of the organisers. So instead I will
ducted EFI business during the turmoil congratulate my co-organisers, Helen
of a pandemic. Indeed one of Joannis’s McFarlane and David Turner. Thank you
objectives, to implement ‘virtual’ learn- – we had a huge challenge turning our
ing opportunities for EFI members, live conference plans into, what has
became a reality during this period in sadly become routine in our lives, the
partnership with the Scientific and Edu- virtual event. Thanks to the support of Another victim of the SARs-CoV-2
cation Committees. Thank you Joannis. our corporate partners and the com- pandemic has been the International
mitment of the lecturers, oral abstract Summer School. Originally planned for
There have also been several changes presenters, poster presenters, session the summer of 2020 to take place in
in the chairs of our EFI committees. We chairs and the 1089 registered attend- the beautiful city of Prague, the event
welcome Blanka Vidan Jeras as chair ees we had, in my humble opinion, an has been made virtual and is taking
of the Accreditation Committee, Luca excellent virtual conference. You will place as I write this report. The organ-
Vago as chair of the Scientific Commit- find a few reports on this event else- isers, predominantly David Turner, Tony
tee and Helle Bruunsgaard as chair of where in this newsletter. Slavcev and Sandra van Hensbergen
the External Proficiency Testing commit- So the EFI flag has virtually been have put together a faculty panel from
tee. Thank you for your commitment to passed to the organisers of EFI 2022 the contributing societies: EFI, ASHI,
the work of EFI. I wish you success and which will take place following the Inter- APHIA and ARSHI. Attendees from all
national Histocompatibility Workshop continents are participating, which
in Amsterdam on May 17th to 20th. The has made the timings of the interac-
organisers, Eric Spierings and Sebas- tive sessions a little challenging! It is
tiaan Heidt and their team are putting hoped that the presentations from the
together an excellent scientific and faculty will be made available for the
social programme. We are all looking EFI membership following the closure
forward to a face to face conference, of the summer school.
with hopefully no travel restrictions in
place. It is now almost two years since EFI held
a face to face business meeting. The
Following Amsterdam 2022 we can committees usually meet during the
look forward to Nantes 2023. The annual conference and, when required,
continue on page 5
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… . from the editor’s desk ______
___
This is already the 95th edition of the EFI Newsletter, which you receive after
hopefully having had a nice and well-deserved summer break. With a bit of
luck we can continue this positive spirit by being able to physically meet and
interact more and more regularly. That being said, despite the EFI annual
conference organized by the Scottish team being fully virtual, it was a great
success. From here I would like to thank Ann-Margaret Little, David Turner
EFI website and Helen McFarlane for making this first (and hopefully last) virtual EFI
www.efi-web.org annual conference such a pleasant experience.
Editor-in-chief
Sebastiaan Heidt More congratulations go out to Ann-Margaret Little who now officially received
Editorial address: the EFI mug (with photographic evidence in this Newsletter), and therefore
EFI Newsletter now formally is our new President. I wish Ann-Margaret the best of luck and
LUMC, Dept. of Immunohematology look forward to her Presidential contributions to the Newsletter.
and Blood Transfusion, Bldg. 1, E3-Q
P.O. Box 9600 Earlier this year we received the sad news that Erik Thorsby had passed.
2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands For those who knew Erik, his friendly and gentle spirit will be missed deeply.
For those younger EFI members who might not know Erik, please look into
EFI Executive Committee 2021 the extensive body of work he and his team have published over the years,
EFI President which includes seminal papers in our field. Both Ludvig Sollid and Frans
A-M. Little (UK) Claas have written an obituary, published in this Newsletter.
EFI Secretary
M. Bengtsson (Sweden) Also in this Newsletter you can find the report from the (virtual) General
Deputy Secretary Assembly held during the last EFI annual conference, the recipients of the
D. Roelen (the Netherlands) awards handed out during this meeting, reports from several EFI commit-
EFI Treasurer tees, as well as reports from the joint EFI sessions at the ESOT meeting
G. Guidicelli (France) held in Milan, and the joint EFI-EFIS session at the ECI meeting held in
Deputy Treasurer Istanbul.
P. Rouzaire (France)
Membership Secretary As always, I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter, and I am looking forward
S. Geelhoed (the Netherlands) to your contribution to the next edition.
S. van Hensbergen (the Netherlands)
Councillors Sebastiaan Heidt
M. Andreani (Italy)
E. Arrieta-Bolanos (Germany) Deadline for contributions to EFI Newsletter 96 is November 8, 2021.
K. Bogunia-Kubik (Poland)
Please send your contributions by e-mail to s.heidt@lumc.nl
K. Poulton (UK)
M. Schaffer (Sweden, Nordic)
K. Tarassi (Greece)
Past Presidents
J.J. van Rood, B.A. Bradley, E. Albert,
J. Hors, M-M Tongio, J.G. Bodmer,
F.H.J. Claas, S. Curtoni, E. Thorsby, Contents _________________________________
_______
F. Garrido, D. Charron, S.G.E. Marsh,
I.I.N. Doxiadis, G. Fischer, E. Naumova, From the EFI President 1
J. Mytilineos From the editor’s desk 3
Membership update 5
In memoriam: Erik Thorsby (1938-2021) 7
The editor and the EFI officers do not accept Obituary. In memory of Erik Thorsby (1938-2021) 9
responsibility for the contents of published Report from the EFI General Assembly April 22 2021 10
articles. Opinions expressed by contributors EFI conference 2021 14
are not necessarily those of the editorial board. Ceppellini Lecturer 2021 – Professor Jacques Neefjes 15
Please support the advertisers in EFI Medal Laureate 2021: Andrea Harmer 17
this issue of EFI Newsletter. EFI Medal Laureate 2021: Luca Mascaretti 18
EFI Medal Laureate 2021: Carlo Carcassi 19
EFI 2021 The best poster awards 19
ISSN 0962-9521 Julia Bodmer Award 2021 – Cristina Toffalori 20
Report of the EFI Accreditation Committee 20
The Jon van Rood award and best abstract session 21
Future EFI conferences – call for EFI 2024 21
Report of the EFI Education Committee 23
Report of the EFI EPT Committee 24
Report of the EFI Scientific Committee 24
Report on the ESOT Conference 2021 25
Report in the Joint EFI-EFIS symposium at the 6th European Congress of Immunology 26
Call for bids for the 19th International HLA and Immunogenetics Workshop 26
Highlights from the HLA journal 26
3
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………… . . from the EFI President ( continued)
in the autumn. Due to restrictions on EFI also has representation within currently collating all the required infor-
travel and the lack of financial income other organisations. There are two mation to enable us to be compliant
from conferences, the Executive Com- EFI representatives on the board with the regulation.
mittee made the decision to not have of the Worldwide Network for Blood An important function of the Executive
face to face committee meetings in and Marrow Transplantation (WBMT), Committee is to support the work of
the autumn of 2021 and instead the (www.wbmt.org) Mats Bengtsson and the EFI committees. We had a meeting
committees will continue to undertake Steven Marsh. The Executive Commit- with the chairs of the committees prior
their business via video conferencing. tee have invited Mats and Steven to to the EFI 2021 conference and follo-
We appreciate that this is disappoint- continue in this role until their terms wing this several requests have been
ing for our committee members espe- come to an end on July 1st 2022. approved by the Executive Committee
cially as travel is now easier for most Furthermore, Sebastiaan Heidt just and you can learn more about these
people within Europe. However we look handed over his position in the ASHI activities within the reports from each
forward to resuming face to face com- Science and Technology Initiatives of the committees in this newsletter.
mittee meetings in 2022. Committee (STIC, analogous to the EFI We can look forward to new Scientific
EFI has several ‘Memorandum of Scientific Committee) to James Robin- Webinars, more e-learning and a new
Understanding’ agreements with other son as EFI representative. database for recording our continuing
societies reignited by Gottfried Fisher professional development activities.
when he was President, and this Since taking up the position of Presi-
endeavour continued with subsequent dent, the Executive Committee has had Sadly, in March this year, we lost Erik
Presidents Elissaveta Naumova and one video meeting with another sche- Thorsby. Erik was EFI President from
Joannis Mytilineos. These agreements duled before this newsletter will be 2002 to 2004 and was also an active
have led to joint sessions being hosted issued. We completed the changes to member of the EFI Scientific Commit-
at conferences organised by various the Constitution as agreed at the Gene- tee. I first met Erik at a conference in
societies. During the EFI 2021 confer- ral Assembly meeting and thanks to Bratislava in 1996, where there were
ence we had a very interesting joint Gwendaline Guidicelli and Paul Rouza- more guest speakers than delegates,
session with ESOT called ‘Increasing ire, these documents have been trans- so we all got to know each other very
access to transplant’, and during the lated into French and approved by the well. I have many fond memories of our
ESOT conference which has just taken Court of Strasbourg. This was a very subsequent chats at various EFI confe-
place there were two joint sessions important action as it allows EFI to con- rences and Ceppellini dinners. He will
with EFI: ‘Present and future role of tinue its business using virtual General be missed by many. Please take time to
HLA and antibodies’ and ‘ How to set Assemblies and virtual Executive Com- read the obituaries prepared by Ludvig
up an ABO incompatibility programme’. mittee meetings and also legitimises Sollid and colleagues, and Frans Claas,
In addition, Katharina Fleischhauer and the minimum number of attendees which are published in this newsletter.
the Scientific Committee organised a that typically attend the annual General
joint session at the European Congress Assembly meeting. Well, I think I have taken up sufficient
on Immunology (ECI) entitled, ‘Immuno- It was highlighted to the Executive space in this newsletter. I welcome
genetics in Cancer‘. These joint sessi- Committee, by the EFI accreditation any suggestions from the membership
ons are important for highlighting the software providers, that EFI does not regarding EFI activities, so if you wish
impact of histocompatibility and immu- have formal documentation to describe to contact me, please use the following
nogenetics to scientists and clinicians how we meet the General Data Pro- email address president@efi-web.org.
who do not work directly in our field tection Regulation (GDPR) that came
and I hope we will continue with this into effect on 25th May 2018. The EFI With best wishes
successful programme of shared acti- Councillors, led by Kay Poulton have
vities. been addressing this issue and we are Ann-Margaret Little
Membership update _______________________________________
________________________________________
Since the last issue of the EFI Newsletter we received a lot of applications forms from new members.
Hereby we would like to welcome the following new EFI members:
Y.C. Rocha, Medellin, Colombia C. Jarosch, Hamburg, Germany P. Bergmann, Dresden, Germany
M. Rakhmanov, Freiburg, Germany D. Amerika-Lebedjkova, Riga, Latvia J. Hjort Baatrup, Åbyhøj, Denmark
D.F. Colombo, Beerse, Belgium O. Batireva, Riga, Latvia R. Berg, Hinnerup, Denmark
D. Colella, Napoli, Italy E. Wojciechowski, Bordeaux, France J.M. Neuhann, Cologne, Germany
M. Braankman, Leiden, D. Naker, Mumbai, India E. Yilmaz, Istanbul, Turkey
the Netherlands J. Rajak, Mumbai, India T. Della Justina Farias, Denver,
M. Gannage, Lausanne, Switzerland K. Koscinska, Wroclaw, Poland United States
K. Kittisares, Bochum, Germany S. Seitz, Tübingen, Germany J. Beert, Mechelen, Belgium
M.A. Jakobsen, Odense C, Denmark M. Lobb, Leeds, United Kingdom
K. Lokk, Tartu, Estonia S.Y. Mogollón Torres, Cali, Colombia
5
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In memoriam: Erik Thorsby (1938-2021) __________________
__
plantation. Would it be possible to make antibodies that
could determine whether a patient could tolerate a donor
organ? Harboe was positive. He suggested that Erik started
by immunizing rabbits. Erik failed to raise HLA specific rabbit
antibodies, which could help to identify donor-recipient pairs
bearing compatible HLA-molecules. Erik quit and took a tem-
porary job as a resident surgeon.
He did not give up his research plans though. He realised
that if he wanted to obtain antibodies with relevance for
transplantations, he had to immunize people. This had
already successfully been done by others (Rapaport et al.
1962). It seemed much more promising than rabbits. Erik
transplanted donor skin grafts (diameter 1.5 cm) onto six
volunteers who were his colleagues at the lab. Five of the
six individuals produced allo-antisera with limited reactivi-
ties. From one of the volunteers Erik collected serum which
identified the antigen MH (Thorsby and Kissmeyer-Nielsen
1968), later baptised HLA-B5. The MH serum had a very high
titre, and it subsequently served as a typing serum in tissue
typing labs worldwide. Another antigen was ET defined by a
serum from Erik after immunising himself. This antigen later
became HLA-B21. Erik defended his doctoral thesis with
Harboe as supervisor in 1969. The thesis entitled “Leuco-
cyte antigens and antibodies in man” included descriptions of
Erik Thorsby, one of the true pioneers in the fields of HLA, HLA variants that later were named HLA-B15 and HLA-B27,
immunogenetics and transplantation immunology passed in addition to the HLA-B5 and HLA-B21 variants. The same
away on March 23rd. His enthusiastic, boyish smile will no year that Erik defended his thesis, he spent four months in
longer greet us. Erik had been living with prostate cancer Aarhus - Denmark, in the laboratory of the late Flemming
for many years until he recently became severely ill, and the Kissmeyer-Nielsen. Many important papers came out of this
cancer conquered him. collaboration.
Erik was born on July 13th in 1938. His father was the deputy When the Norwegian government in 1969 decided that organ
chief for the fire department in Oslo at a time when this posi- transplantation should be centralised to Rikshospitalet (The
tion came with an apartment at the main fire station, down- National Hospital), Erik was headhunted to establish the
town Oslo. Here Erik spent his first years with his parents Tissue Typing Laboratory. In 1984 this unit was renamed
and two sisters. Later the family moved out of the city centre, to the Institute of Transplantation Immunology when affili-
closer to the woods surrounding Oslo, where Erik among ated also with the University of Oslo. When the new Rik-
others enjoyed cross-country skiing – a habit that stayed with shospitalet campus was completed in 2000, the Institute of
him throughout his life. Erik graduated from Medical school Transplantation Immunology was merged with the Institute
at the University of Oslo in 1963. Afterwards, he did manda- of Immunology and Rheumatology to become the Institute
tory service required to become a licensed doctor and then of Immunology. Erik was the head of this merged, flagship
compulsory military service in the Northern part of Norway, institute until 2006. Erik was also the Dean of the Faculty
at Saetermoen in Troms. Here, he spent his days doing small of Medicine at the University of Oslo from 1989 to 1990.
surgical procedures on civilians at the brigade’s hospital. The fact that Erik was the head of prosperous clinical ser-
However, there was not much to do in his spare time. Party vice departments and university institutes for more than 40
life was sparse at Saetermoen. Thus, Erik had plenty of time years reflects his unique leadership capacity and leadership
to read and contemplate his future career. He had become personality. Erik was dynamic, pragmatic and highly result
interested in transplantation as a treatment for organ fail- oriented. He put high demands on himself and his co-work-
ure. If the kidneys failed, kidneys from a healthy relative or ers. At the same time, Erik gave his co-workers a lot of free-
a cadaveric donor could replace them. Except for genetically dom. Many talents developed under his wings. These talents
identical twins, kidney transplantation was only occasionally on maturation, large in numbers, have populated leadership
successful (Anonymous 1953). This problem intrigued Erik; positions of academia and hospitals in Norway.
this was what he wanted to pursue when his military service Erik as a scientist was curious and enthusiastic – his boyish
ended. spirit also surfaced here. The lab meetings were filled with a
lot of discussions, ranging from What is the influence of HLA
In 1965, Erik contacted the only immunologist in Oslo at matching for graft survival? What is the importance of direct
that time, the late Morten Harboe who at that time worked vs indirect allo-recognition? How do HLA molecules bind pep-
at the Institute for Experimental Medical Research at Ull- tides? How does thymic selection of T cells happen? -- to
evaal Hospital. Erik explained that he wanted to study the mention some topics. The lab meetings were the highlight
immune reaction that could be a barrier for successful trans- of the week. At these meetings, Erik was never afraid to ask
7
naïve questions. These naïve questions often went to the At scientific meetings, Erik often gave lectures. He was a
core of the matter. They were catalysts for the discussions much-wanted speaker. He gave lucid talks, speaking with
to develop. Thus, Erik’s questions were important by them- huge enthusiasm. He managed to make complicated issues
selves. However, more importantly, as they were posted in sound very simple. Although obviously having special gifts
a non-show-off manner, they paved the road for other lab for speaking to an audience, part of Erik’s success came
members to ask their questions, not being afraid that their from his meticulous preparations, not least from making
questions could be perceived as stupid. didactic slides. The importance of easy-to-read, but still very
informative slides was something Erik carefully taught all his
Erik and his laboratory contributed over the years with many doctoral candidates - and something we have all benefited
important pieces of new knowledge. He provided together from.
with Kissmeyer-Nielsen in 1970 the first evidence for the
existence of HLA-C molecules (Thorsby et al. 1970). He pub- Erik lived an active life outside of science. He spent much
lished papers in Nature showing that beta2-microglobulin time out in nature. His wife Anne accompanied Erik in these
is part of HLA class I molecules expressed in lymphocyte outdoor activities. For many years, Erik had his own sailing
membranes (Solheim and Thorsby 1974) and that human boat often exploring the Norwegian coastline. However, later
macrophages express HLA-D determinants (i.e. HLA class II in life Erik gravitated to the Norwegian mountains. Talking
molecules) (Hirschberg et al. 1976). Erik provided evidence to a journalist, on the top of the monumental peak Slogen
that HLA class II molecules on endothelial cells are func- (1564 m above the fjord), Erik told the journalist «These are
tional for antigen presentation (Hirschberg et al. 1980). He moments in life you never forget». Due to his bonding to the
provided evidence that matching for HLA matters for graft mountains, Erik and Anne acquired an old picturesque farm,
survival of transplanted kidneys (Albrechtsen et al. 1978), located in the outskirts of the massive mountain area Jotun-
even in cyclosporine-treated patients (Leivestad et al. heimen in the South of Norway. The farm has altogether 10
1999). He did seminal work with human T-cell clones and buildings, several of them more than 400 years old. Erik
showed the importance of HLA restriction for antigen recog- made his mission to restore these buildings back to their
nition (Paulsen et al. 1985; Qvigstad et al. 1983). Erik was original shape.
particularly interested in the biological function of HLA mol- It is strange that Erik is no more. There is no more an Erik
ecules. This is probably why he took such an eager interest to ask for advice and to discuss science with. Our thoughts
in trying to understand how certain HLA allotypes predispose go to Anne, to his children and the rest of Erik’s large family.
to disease. Erik became a world expert in this field produc-
ing key papers on the HLA association of type 1 diabetes Ludvig M. Sollid , Knut E. A. Lundin, Torbjørn Leivestad, Anne
(Ronningen et al. 1989), multiple sclerosis (Spurkland et al. Spurkland, Frode Vartdal
1991) and coeliac disease (Lundin et al. 1993; Sollid et al.
1989). We were all fortunate to collaborate with Erik on dif-
ferent aspects of HLA biology, ranging from organ transplan- References
tation to the molecular underpinnings of HLA-association in Albrechtsen D, Flatmark A, Jervell J, Solheim B, Thorsby
coeliac disease. Erik received numerous prizes and awards E (1978) HLA-DR antigen matching in cadaver renal
for his scientific work, perhaps most notably the Nordic transplantation. Lancet 1:825
Anders Jahre medical award for young scientists in 1974. Anonymous (1953) RENAL transplantation. Lancet
He received the EFI Ceppelini Award in 2011. 265:1248-9
Hirschberg H, Bergh OJ, Thorsby E (1980) Antigen-present-
Erik’s influence went far beyond Norway. He was one of the ing properties of human vascular endothelial cells. J
founding figures and active participants of Scandiatransplant Exp Med 152:249s-255s
– an organisation made to facilitate the exchange of organs Hirschberg H, Kaakinen A, Thorsby E (1976) Presence of
between the Nordic countries. Scandiatransplant celebrated HLA-D determinants on human macrophages. Nature
its 50 years anniversary in 2019 – at that time more than 50 263:63-4
000 transplants had taken place within the organisation – Leivestad T, Reisaeter AV, Brekke IB, Vartdal F, Thorsby E
indeed a huge success. Erik was the president for the Scan- (1999) The role of HLA matching in renal transplanta-
dinavian Society for Immunology in the mid 1980’s. He was tion: experience from one center. Rev Immunogenet
heavily involved in the International Transplantation Society 1:343-50
where he served both as Secretary and Vice-president. Erik Lundin KE, Scott H, Hansen T, Paulsen G, Halstensen TS,
took an active role in the European Federation for Immuno- Fausa O, Thorsby E, Sollid LM (1993) Gliadin-specific,
genetics (EFI), where he was a member of the EFI Scientific HLA-DQ(α1*0501,β1*0201) restricted T cells isolated
Committee for several years and was also the President in from the small intestinal mucosa of celiac disease
the period 2002-2004. Erik took a particularly keen interest patients. J Exp Med 178:187-96
in the International Histocompatibility Workshops. He was a Paulsen G, Qvigstad E, Gaudernack G, Rask L, Winchester
Councillor for many years, he highly prioritised the participa- R, Thorsby E (1985) Identification, at the genomic level,
tion of his laboratory in all the workshops, and he was the of an HLA-DR restriction element for cloned antigen-
chair of various HLA workshop components. We believe we specific T4 cells. J Exp Med 161:1569-74
do not overstate saying that Erik was one of the main driving Qvigstad E, Digranes S, Thorsby E (1983) Antigen-specific
forces in this extremely important work, done in a collabora- proliferative human T-lymphocyte clones with specificity
tive spirit with other scientists. for Chlamydia trachomatis. Scand J Immunol 18:291-7
8
Rapaport FT, Lawrence HS, Thomas L, Converse JM, Til- disease to a particular HLA-DQ α/β heterodimer. J Exp
lett WS, Mulholland JH (1962) Cross-reactions to skin Med 169:345-50
homografts in man. J Clin Invest 41:2166-72 Spurkland A, Ronningen KS, Vandvik B, Thorsby E, Vartdal
Ronningen KS, Iwe T, Halstensen TS, Spurkland A, Thorsby F (1991) HLA-DQA1 and HLA-DQB1 genes may jointly
E (1989) The amino acid at position 57 of the HLA-DQβ determine susceptibility to develop multiple sclerosis.
chain and susceptibility to develop insulin-dependent Hum Immunol 30:69-75
diabetes mellitus. Hum Immunol 26:215-25 Thorsby E, Kissmeyer-Nielsen F (1968) Lymphocytotoxic
Solheim BG, Thorsby E (1974) Beta-2-microglobulin is part antisera of limited iso-specificity after skin grafting in
of the HL-A molecule in the lymphocyte membrane. man. Vox Sang 14:417-27
Nature 249:36-8 Thorsby E, Sandberg L, Lindholm A, Kissmeyer-Nielsen F
Sollid LM, Markussen G, Ek J, Gjerde H, Vartdal F, Thorsby (1970) The HL-A system: evidence of a third sub-locus.
E (1989) Evidence for a primary association of celiac Scand J Haematol 7:195-200
Obituary.
In memory of Erik Thorsby (1938-2021) ___________________
__
ings, not only by showing an association between DQ2 and
coeliac disease[6] but also by revealing important aspects of
the immune reactions involved such as the presentation of
modified gliadin epitopes to the T cell receptor[7].
Erik also had great interest in population genetics and in par-
ticular in the migration patterns of different ethnic groups all
over the world. His favorite story concerned the population
of Easter Island, Rapa Nui. Studies on the genetics of mito-
chondrial DNA and the Y-chromosome had provided evidence
that the settlers and ancestors of the current populations
were Polynesians coming from the west. Erik could demon-
strate by adding the results of (high resolution) HLA typing
to the other 2 parameters that early Amerindians had also
contributed to the gene pool.[8]
The research of Erik and his team has led to more than 500
papers in peer reviewed journals.
Other contributions to the field
With sadness we earlier this year received the message that Erik has always been a very active member of the interna-
our good friend and colleague Erik Thorsby passed away. Erik tional immunogenetics community, which is, amongst others,
was one of the pioneers, who made several important contri- reflected by the contributions of his laboratory to the Inter-
butions to the field of histocompatibility and immunogenet- national Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics workshops
ics. since 1970. Erik was appointed as a workshop councilor in
1975 and has served as such until the last workshop in
Short summary of his scientific work Asilomar.
Erik started his professional career in 1966 at the Ullevaal
Hospital in Oslo, Norway. At that time kidney transplantation Erik has served as EFI-president from 2002-2004 and was
had just started in Scandinavia and Erik became very much one of the first teachers during the international summer
interested in histocompatibility, and the role of HLA matching schools organized by EFI together with the sister organization
in renal transplantation. His studies revealed several new ASHI and APHIA. In 2006 Erik was one of the organizers of a
HLA antigens and, in collaboration with Fleming Kissmeyer- successful EFI meeting in Oslo. He was very often invited as
Nielsen, he provided in 1970 convincing evidence for the a speaker on international meetings and was always clearly
existence of a third HLA locus, HLA-C[1]. Erik became one present as an active contributor to the discussions.
of the initiators and the histocompatibility expert of Scandia- In 2011 he was awarded with the Ceppellini lecture during
transplant [2], which had its 50 years anniversary in 2019. the EFI meeting in Prague.
Originally, organ allocation was based on matching for HLA-A
and -B. However, when the MLR determinants could be deter- Apart from being a brilliant scientist with major contributions
mined with serology, Erik was one of the first to demonstrate to the field of H&I, Erik was also a very pleasant and social
a strong effect of HLA-DR matching on graft survival, result- person. I remember his informal interactions with the stu-
ing in a publication in the Lancet in 1978 [3]. dents during the first summer schools. They could hardly
Erik was also an authority in research on HLA and disease believe that the great Erik Thorsby, whom they only knew
associations with a special interest in coeliac disease[4] from the literature, was such a friendly and helpful person.
and type 1 diabetes[5]. His group made several crucial find- Also, personally, I have very good memories of Erik and will
9
never forget the nice moments we had together, often with [3] D. Albrechtsen, A. Flatmark, J. Jervell, B. Solheim, E.
a beer. I am very glad that he could be present at my retire- Thorsby, HLA-DR antigen matching in cadaver renal
ment symposium, where, of course, he talked about his transplantation, Lancet 1(8068) (1978) 825.
favorite Easter Island and enjoyed the party afterwards. [4] L.M. Sollid, E. Thorsby, The primary association of celiac
Although Erik has passed away, his legacy to the field will disease to a given HLA-DQ alpha/beta heterodimer
remain, as is the case with our memories of a very pleasant explains the divergent HLA-DR associations observed in
and knowledgeable colleague and friend. various Caucasian populations, Tissue Antigens 36(3)
We wish his wife Anne and further family all strength with (1990) 136-7.
this great loss. [5] B.A. Lie, J.A. Todd, F. Pociot, J. Nerup, H.E. Akselsen, G.
Joner, K. Dahl-Jorgensen, K.S. Ronningen, E. Thorsby,
Frans Claas D.E. Undlien, The predisposition to type 1 diabetes
linked to the human leukocyte antigen complex includes
at least one non-class II gene, Am J Hum Genet 64(3)
(1999) 793-800.
References [6] K.E. Lundin, H.A. Gjertsen, H. Scott, L.M. Sollid, E.
[1] E. Thorsby, L. Sandberg, A. Lindholm, F. Kissmeyer- Thorsby, Function of DQ2 and DQ8 as HLA susceptibil-
Nielsen, The HL-A system: evidence of a third sub-locus, ity molecules in celiac disease, Hum Immunol 41(1)
Scand J Haematol 7(3) (1970) 195-200. (1994) 24-7.
[2] F. Kissmeyer-Nielsen, A. Svejgaard, O. Fjeldborg, V.P. [7] K.E. Lundin, H. Scott, T. Hansen, G. Paulsen, T.S. Hal-
Petersen, L. Staub Nielsen, F. Lund, E. Clausen, J. Hess stensen, O. Fausa, E. Thorsby, L.M. Sollid, Gliadin-spe-
Thaysen, E. Kemp, H. Rahbeck Sorensen, E. Thorsby, E. cific, HLA-DQ(alpha 1*0501,beta 1*0201) restricted T
Brodwall, A. Flatmark, F. Bergan, E. Enger, O.J. Malm, L. cells isolated from the small intestinal mucosa of celiac
Sandberg, A. Lindholm, L.E. Gelin, C. Hogman, K.E. Fjell- disease patients, J Exp Med 178(1) (1993) 187-96.
strom, L. Thoren, E. Moller, Scandiatransplant: prelimi- [8] E. Thorsby, The Polynesian gene pool: an early contribu-
nary report of a kidney exchange program, Transplant tion by Amerindians to Easter Island, Philos Trans R Soc
Proc 3(2) (1971) 1019-29. Lond B Biol Sci 367(1590) (2012) 812-9.
Report from the EFI General Assembly
April 22 2021 ________________________________________________________________
__
For the second time in history the EFI the General Assembly (GA) was held as an on-line webinar because of the
Covid-19 pandemic. This time the GA was during the Annual meeting that was also a virtual meeting, the first in EFI’s history.
1. Opening hopefully the on-site inspections will resume soon. It
EFI President Joannis Mytilineos opened the GA and wel- is not only EFI meetings that have been cancelled but
comed all EFI members present. almost every regional educational activity has been can-
celled. But on the positive side, EFI has had the opportu-
2. Minutes of the General Assembly July 23rd,2020. nity to establish video-conference meeting platforms and
The minutes of the GA, held on-line, July 23rd 2020 and also host regular EFI webinars
published in the EFI newsletter September 2020, issues
92 were approved. International Collaboration
A cooperation agreement with ESOT was signed on Jan-
3. Report of the EFI President uary 22, 2020 and a successful joint session just car-
Teleconferences and Meetings ried out at the EFI virtual meeting 2021 and there will
There have not been any in-person meetings since the be a joint EFI-ESOT session at the ESOT meeting later
last GA but there have been 10 teleconferences with the this year. Because of our cooperation with EFIS we will
Executive Committee (EC), and among those, two with the also arrange a joint session at the European Congress
ECC. on Immunology in September this year. The topic will be
Immunogenetics in Cancer. Additionally, EFI is a partner
Covid-19 consequences of the Covid-HLA-Genome Project. There has also been a
The EFI president summarized the consequences for EFI virtual meeting with the Presidents of our sister societies,
of the ongoing pandemic. ASHI, APHIA and ARSHI.
Because of postponement of the annual meeting in 2020
all subsequent meetings have been postponed also, Annual conferences and International Summer School
which includes the start of the cooperation with the Cor- As already mentioned, because of the pandemic, the
porate PCO- Guarant. This also has had a financial impact planned EFI conference in Amsterdam 2021 will now be
for EFI with loss of incomes from the annual conference. in 2022 and this means that the EFI meeting in Nantes
The planned International Summer School (ISS) in Prague moves to 2023. The ISS will be a fully virtual meeting
2020 will now be a fully virtual event later this year. Also, between September 6-8, 2021
the accreditation activities have been postponed, but
10Other issues
There is an ongoing collaboration with DGI to negotiate New wording of Article 11
an agreement with EFI and DAkkS, the German national On the President’s decision, the Executive Commit-
accreditation body on how to perform joint accreditation tee may meet remotely or members of the Executive
inspections. The introduction of Slack, a video conference Committee who wish to attend the meeting, may do so
tool and instant messaging for communication between remotely, in both cases by any means of telecommuni-
and within EFI committees has been very useful. EFI is cations enabling their identification and guaranteeing
also working on guidelines, policies for communications their effective and continuous participation (videocon-
that will includes document retention guidelines. ference and teleconference, etc.). A member of the
Executive Committee, participating remotely, is consid-
Legal advice ered to be present for the calculation of the quorum
During the last GA it was communicated that we have and the majority.
sought legal advice from a French law firm, DELSOL Avo-
cats. One of the questions that needed clarification was New wording Article 14
if there is a requirement that the Treasurer must be from The quorum for any meeting of the General Assembly
France. The Solicitors clearly responded that this is not will be 5% of the voting membership of the General
the situation, but since EFI is based In France, at least Assembly or 50 voting members of the General Assem-
one would be practical. bly, present or represented by proxy, the greater number
During this pandemic it was clear that we need to change of the two being that required to be reached for the
our constitution in order to be able to include the option validity of the General Assembly.
of holding a virtual GA and virtual meetings for the EC. A
group under Ann-Margaret Little, our President-elect, have The President then ended his presentation with all the
been working with the solicitors to make the necessary members of the different EFI committees, with special
changes. The proposed changes were circulated by the thanks to the chairs that are leaving but also a welcome
EFI Office by blast-mail. The proposed changes introduce to the new incoming chairs.
the option to hold meetings either in person, remotely
or a hybrid of both. The solicitors informed us that the 4. Report of the EFI Secretary, Mats Bengtsson
constitution must specify this and that advice is also Executive Committee Elections
supported by the “House of the associations” based in There were no elections this year, but there will be a
Strasbourg and our accountants. The French law has per- number of vacancies next year. Members that wish to be
mitted us to hold last years GA and this year GA remotely considered should apply before October 1st 2021. The
but this option is only available, at present, until July procedure for nominations is published on the website,
31, 2021. During the review of the constitution also the each candidate needs support from ten members from at
quorum requirement in Chapter 7, Article 14 is difficult least two different countries. We are looking for nomina-
to achieve and therefore a change has been proposed. tions for Secretary, deputy Secretary and Treasurer, as
Some minor changes in the English translation have also Mats Bengtsson, Dave Roelen and Gwendaline Guidicelli
been introduced to improve the translation from French. have all served their second term. There will also be three
vacancies for councilors, as Katarzyna Bogunia-Kubik,
Questions from the membership Katerina Tarassi and Marco Andreani will come to the end
José Nunes asked if the GA can be in a mixed mode, both of their terms. Elections will be during spring 2022.
in with people present and members present remotely or
if only one mode will be used. It was responded that both Future EFI Conferences
modes are possible. Next year’s EFI annual meeting will be held in Amsterdam
followed by Nantes in 2023. We will be looking for appli-
Voting cations to arrange the EFI meeting in 2024.
The president then asked if the proposals could be voted
for together or if separate votes were needed. It was 5. Report of the EFI Treasurer, Gwendaline Guidicelli
accepted to have one vote with both the proposals in arti- The balance sheet for 2020 was presented. This now
cle 11 and 14 together. The voting was performed in the includes all accounts, both those in France and those in
web platform- There was 95% approval, 3% abstain and the Netherlands. There is a slight increase in total assets
only 2% against. Joannis Mytilineos therefore concluded in 2020 compared to 2019 and the total assets are now
that the GA had decided to change the constitution. €1.187.144. During 2020 there was less income from
the Accreditation program because of the reduced fee,
The new wording in Article 10 but also less expenses. There have also been no bursa-
The Executive Committee may decide that the General ries or expenses for meetings but also no income from
Assembly meeting will be held remotely by any appropri- the annual conference, which is a major source of income
ate means of communication or telecommunication. The for EFI. Since the solicitor has raised questions on the
Executive Committee can also decide that any member financial organization of EFI it was decided to use Ernst
may participate remotely by any appropriate means of & Young for the 2020 audit. The accounts in the Nether-
communication or telecommunication. Members partici- lands are audited by Ernst & Young in the Netherlands
pating remotely are considered to be present for the cal- and the report is sent to Ernst & Young in France to com-
culation of the quorum and the majority. pile the global report for EFI.
11Net result 2020 Ed Petershofen as co-chair. Sabine Scherer will be the
The total income for 2020 is €282.746 and the total new General Secretary for the committee. Five Com-
expenses were €305.731 resulting in an overall net missioner will leave, Martin Howell, Sylvie Tourne,
result of minus €22.985. Dominique Masson, Luca Mascaretti and Amal Bis-
hara and they will be replaced by Colin Brown, Agnès
Forecast budget 2021 Basire, Sylvie Ferrari-Lacraz, Bendetta Mazzi and Nina
The expected income for 2021 is €297.300 and the Svetlicky. New to the committee will also be Kay Poul-
expected expenses are €388.356 leading to a minus ton replacing Ann-Margaret Little, Junior Lardy replacing
result of €91.056. Major efforts have been made to Christien Voorter and Zorana Grubic replacing Blanka
reduce costs, almost no bursaries, less meeting sup- Vidan-Jeras in region 5a.
port and no expenses for EC and committee meetings,
but we have new costs for GoToWebinar subscription and Inspections
Moodle e-learning. Inspections have resumed from March 2021 and there
will be both “normal” on-site inspections with both
Impact on Covid-19 inspectors present. There will also be the alternative
The fact that the conference was cancelled in 2020 were only the local inspector is present on-site, but
meant that we had no income from the annual meeting the outside region inspector will participate on-line and
that year, and the income from the meeting is one of the finally an alternative with fully remote inspections. New
major income sources for EFI. Also, the organization of guidance for inspectors have been issued via a webinar.
this year’s virtual meeting is expected to raise less than
normal income for 2021. Costs were also incurred for Committee Activities
rescheduling Amsterdam 2022, for the Workshop the The committee has updated the Procedure Manual to
cost is 5500€ and for the Conference 12 000€. take into account the questions about nominations for
commissioners, raised at last General assembly, and
Questions from the membership to also include the requirement for inspector qualifica-
Peter Horn asked when EFI last changed auditor and tions. There is also ongoing work with review of data
the Treasurer responded that this was done this year to retention policy for GDPR.
Ernst & Young International, there will now be the same
company auditing both the accounts in France and the b. Report from the Education Committee Chair, David
Netherlands. Carlo Carcassi asked if the expenses for Turner.
the upcoming Workshop will be paid by EFI. The Presi-
dent responded that EFI will organize the annual meet- Committee membership
ing but that we of course support the Workshop. Frans David Turner started with an overview of the Commit-
Claas asked if EFI has received any support from compa- tee membership, he will leave the committee next year
nies and Joannis Mytilineos responded that EFI received and Deborah Sage will then become the new Chair.
support from companies during this meeting but that
the benefit from the annual meeting is less than usual ESHI Diploma
because we still had to pay for various services for the The first on-line assessment took place on November
postponed live conference in 2020. Ann-Margaret Little 2020. For upcoming examinations this year there are
added that the income from this year will be used to pay seven new candidates and these will also be on-line
for the loss last year. examinations. One expects more applications and
therefore two new assessors will be trained. Next
Voting week the UEMS-EBTI assembly will take place and then
The result for 2020 and budget for 2021 was approved some changes to the ESHI portfolio will be discussed.
by voting. 91% approved, 9% abstained and no votes The plans are to reduce the number of assessors from
against. three to two and detail the extra requirements for can-
didates not trained in EFI/ASHI accredited laborato-
6. Report from the EFI Committees ries. An “Examination Rules of Conduct” will also be
a. Report from the EFI Accreditation Committee chair, added.
Andrea Harmer
ETHIQ Diploma
The number of accredited laboratories remain stable The EFI Technical H&I Qualification pilot started late
with 270 laboratories, 2 fewer than in 2020. Because 2019 with participants from France, the Netherlands,
of the pandemic no new laboratories have been Italy and Sweden. Four of the registrants from France
inspected and there are five that are waiting for their have now completed the Training Manual and also
first inspection. the on-line assessment on the Moodle platform. The
four ETHIQ Diplomates, Isabelle Favre-Victoire, Geral-
Changes to the Accreditation Committee dine Theilliere, Sandrine Paul and Claude Vichier will
There should have been a large number of changes receive their newly designed Diploma.
in the Accreditation Committee last year but because The feedback has been very positive from the partici-
of the exceptional circumstances with the pandemic pants. The plan is now to move the logbook from pdf
it was decided to postpone those to this year. Andrea to the Moodle online platform. Hopefully, the program
Harmer will step down as chair and will be replaced will welcome new participants in 2022. A survey will be
by Blanka Vidan-Jeras. Christien Voorter will replace sent out to get an idea of likely interest.
12CME/CPD platform d. Report from the Scientific Committee chair, Katharina
The committee has been looking into a platform from Fleishhauer.
a UK company used by BSHI. They can provide a cus-
tom-made platform that allows members to record all Committee membership
educational activities online and upload supporting evi- Katharina started with an overview of the committee
dence. The work is still in progress. membership. This is also her last presentation as
chair because she will step down after this meeting.
International Summer School (ISS) The new chair will be Luca Vago from Italy.
The postponed ISS from last year will be a virtual event
between September 6th to 8th. The faculty is confirmed Joint meetings with other Societies
and the registration is planned to open mid-May. EFI There will be a joint EFI-EFIS session at the Virtual
will for this event for the first time test a new abstract 6th European Congress of Immunology (ECI) in Sep-
tool called EasyChair. Delegates will be selected based tember. The session will be titled “Immunogenetics of
on abstract, region and training needs. The number of Cancer” and will be chaired by Katharina and with John
participants is limited to approximately 60. Trowsdale, Luca Vago and Lotte Wieten from the sci-
entific committee as speakers. During the 20th ESOT
E-learning meeting in Milan August 21-September 1st there will
Dave Turner ended his presentation with an overview be two joint sessions. One with Dave Roelen as chair-
of the successful e-learning - ESHI Diploma training “Present and future role of HLA and antibodies” and
course. This was undertaken with the EBTI and with one with David Turner as chair with the title “How to set
financial support from the Italian Berloni Foundation. up an ABO incompatibility program.
The lectures have been viewed by more than 100 mem-
bers with in total more than 1000 views! EFI Scientific Webinars
The Scientific webinars were launched last year with
c. Report from the External Proficiency testing Committee speakers selected and invited from the Scientific Com-
Chair, Falko Heinemann. mittee. The latest one was with Mary Carrington “The
impact of immunogenetic variation in viral disease”.
Committee membership The webinar had over 270 participants from all over
This will be Falko Heinemann’s last presentation from the world. The slides from the presentation are avail-
the EPT committee since he has now served his last able at the EFI website. The committee are planning to
term: after this meeting Helle Bruunsgaard will be the have more webinars later this year.
new chair. Sandra Tafulo is a new member from region
9+10. There are two vacancies, one from Italy and one Scientific awards
from Germany This year Ceppellini lecturer is Jacques Neefjes from
Leiden, the Netherlands and next year it will be Peter
Coronavirus and EPT Doherty from Melbourne. The Julia Bodmer award was
There is currently very little impact of the pandemic for given to Christina Toffalori this year and for next year
EPT providers, the modification on the requirements candidates are welcome
on number of samples implemented in May 2020 are
very seldomly used at present. Some laboratories e. Report from the Standards and Quality Assurance
have however reported that testing of EPT samples is Committee chair, Katy Latham.
restricted because of limited staff availability.
Committee membership
New EPT standards New members since April 2021 are Natasa Katalinic,
The updated EPT standards for providers will include a Croatia, Sabine Wende, Austria and Chrysanthin
more precisely defined standards for chimerism testing Tsamadou from Germany.
and more restrictive rules and more harmonized con-
sensus thresholds for antibody identification. There is International collaboration
also ongoing discussions of how to deal with interme- A connection has been established with FACT-Netcord
diate resolution typing results that are more often used and the committee are invited to QAS meeting during
in organ allocation systems. The two major alterna- ASHI annual meeting-. EFI also invites representatives
tives are either creating a new category-“Intermediate from ASHI to their meetings
resolution HLA typing” or one could modify the existing
standards to match the requirements for organ alloca- New standards
tion. Version 8.1 of the EFI standards will be finalized during
2021 to be effective from 2022. It will include minor
EPTC Procedure Manual issues. The next major update will be version 9.0 that
There is ongoing work to update the Procedure will include more complex issues. The plan is to have
Manual, there will be changes for the mission state- it ready during 2022 so it can be effective from 2023.
ment, the composition of the committee with the bal- It will include enhanced standards on training and com-
ance between EPT providers and users and regulations petency but also on new reporting formats e.g. digital,
for the chair/co-chair. GL strings and epitopes. Katy ended her presentation
with a briefly description on comments received from
the membership.
13f. Report from the IT & Bioinformatics Committee chair, ing typing and antibody data within the IHIW/DasH and
Eric Spierings companies are adopting these standards and also
allocation organizations have shown interest. For EFI it
Committee membership is very important to be actively involved and the com-
There are two new members, Mathijs Groenewegen mittee follows the development closely.
and Nicolas Vince so the committee now comprise 5
members. 7. Next EFI conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The next EFI conference will be in Amsterdam 2022, May
Abstract tool 17-20. The Motto of the meeting is “Tolerance, Accep-
A new abstract tool - EasyChair - will be tested at the tance and Permissiveness”. It will be organized as a
upcoming ISS and the plan is then to introduce it at the hybrid meeting, with focus on the live event.
EFI conference in 2022 in Amsterdam. The implemen-
tation involves interactions with the organizers of ISS, 8. EFI medal
the Scientific Committee and the Educational Commit- The EFI medal is awarded annually by the EFI Executive
tee. Committee to recognize the achievements of individuals
who during the course of their career have made sig-
E-learning nificant contribution to EFI. This year the EFI medal was
The committee has evaluated different e-learning plat- awarded to Andrea Harmer, Luca Mascaretti and Carlo
forms and has concluded that Moodle is best suited Carcassi. The medal to Andrea Harmer was presented
for EFI. It can be used for education, training and also by Blanka Vidan-Jeras, Katharina Fleischhauer presented
examinations. Moodle will be implemented during the Luca Mascaretti and for Carlo Carcassi Gottfried Fischer
coming months. had composed a special piece of music. The award is
described elsewhere in the newsletter.
EFI progressive web application
The committee has been looking into a progressive 9. Installation of the new EFI President
web application that merges information from differ- The outgoing EFI President, Joannis Mytilineos expressed
ent sources into a single application. The needs and his sincere appreciation to all EFI committees and mem-
purposes will be defined after discussions with the EFI bers of the EFI EC for all support during his presidency.
committees to provide basis for further exploration. Joannis welcomed Ann-Margaret Little as the new presi-
dent and the engraved EFI tankard was virtually handled
Digital data standards over to her.
New standards are being developed for communicat- The General assembly was closed at approx. 20.45.
EFI conference 2021 ____________________________________________________
__
Dear colleagues, social programme that we had worked the British Society for Histocompatibil-
very hard on, including lots of wine ity and Immunogenetics, we had double
It was a great honour for us to be and food tastings, we were delighted the number of award lectures. Congrat-
selected to host an EFI conference here that our scientific programme could ulations to Prof Jacques Neefjes, Cep-
in Scotland. We were so looking forward be delivered. We were truly impressed pellini award; Cristina Toffalori, Julia
to showing off the city of Glasgow and with the commitment of (virtually) all Bodmer award; Ashley Moffett, the
to hosting all our EFI friends. Alas the our invited speakers and chairs, most BSHI Festenstein award and Mary Car-
wee beastie called SARS-CoV-2 caused of whom took time to pre-record their rington the BSHI Terasaki award.
a delay of one year and a move to a lectures and then appear live for ques- In addition to the plenary and teaching
virtual programme. tions and answers. sessions, we had 77 oral presenta-
Although we were unable to provide the As this conference was held jointly with tions and 241 posters.
Following the conference we received
328 responses to our feedback ques-
tionnaire. A few of the key findings are
given here
• 96.3% rated the scientific content as
good/ very good
• 91.5% thought the conference was
the right length
• 93.7% rated timings convenient
• 92.27% rated overall conference
good / very good
• 94.6% rated overall organisation
good / very good
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