Guest Symposium Proposal Instructions

 Guest Symposia proposals must be submitted on behalf of a professional society, NIH institute, etc. Sessions proposed by individuals will not be accepted. Guest organizations may not sponsor more than one session annually.  All sessions will be 1.5 hours long.

The following information will be requested for submission: 

• Main contact for the session 
• Name of the Guest Society, Association, or Institution 
• Topic (see below for details) 
• Session title and session description 
• Proposed speakers, chairs, and alternative speakers, including affiliations 
• Preferred day for the session (see below for details)

Suggested Topics

 To encourage a broad scientific program, the AMCC has identified suggested topics for Guest Symposia. Suggested topics should serve as general jump-off points, and sessions should be tailored to be reflective of your organization’s specific interests.  Proposals for guest symposia addressing these topics and/or topics not currently in the scientific program will be prioritized for acceptance.

The suggested topics are:  

• Human/translational immunology (examples include autoimmune disease, drug discovery, viral triggers of chronic disease, and xenotransplantation)  
• Immunology-adjacent fields (examples include environmental immunology, fungal immunology, synthetic biology, epidemiology, and immunotoxicology)  
• Tissue-specific and neuroimmunology (examples include neurodegeneration, immune responses in the airway epithelium, non-intestinal mucosa, eyes, reproductive tract; tissue-resident memory cells)  
• Tolerance and therapeutics (examples include tolerance induction and maintenance to autoimmune disease, type 1 diabetes, cancer and tumor immunology, and organ transplantation)  
• Responses to infectious disease (examples include innate/adaptive/other cellular responses, vaccination strategies, triggers of autoimmunity, and therapeutics)  
• Model systems and/or comparative immunology (examples include organic and synthetic models, evolutionary immunology, immunology across species)  
• Other (Note: Sessions focused on the topics listed above, and topics that are not currently in the scientific program, will be prioritized.)  

Proposal Submission Timeline

The proposal submission site is open October 12 – November 12, 2026.  Notification of proposal decision and scheduling will happen week of December 7, 2026.

Additional Guidelines

• All speakers and chairs must be physically present at IMMUNOLOGY2027™ in Los Angeles, CA to participate. The meeting will take place from April 30 – May 4, 2027. There is no option for Guest Symposia participants to hold their session virtually.  
• AAI does not reimburse Guest Symposia participants for registration fees or other expenses incurred by participating in this session. Individual societies and organizations may reimburse participants at their discretion.  
• AAI will review proposed sessions, speakers, and chairs to avoid subject and participant overlap with other planned sessions and promote diversity within each symposium. Please do not invite chairs or speakers until the session has been reviewed and approved by AAI. 
• Chairs and speakers should differ from those who participated in IMMUNOLOGY2026™. 
• AAI supports gender and ethnic diversity by promoting equitable representation of men and women as speakers, and encourages international colleagues to feature scientists, including women, from the home country of the Guest Symposium.  
• Each speaker must have a different institutional affiliation (e.g., the same university cannot be represented by two speakers). Both session chairs must have different affiliations. A chair and speaker may have the same affiliation if the chair is not also a speaker. 
• Individual institutes within large national organizations (e.g., NHLBI, NIH and NIA, NIH) are considered different affiliations. Exceptions may be made for organizations that by definition have a more limited membership; please contact the AAI Meetings group (meetings@aai.org) for guidance. 
• Speakers must not be scheduled to speak elsewhere in the IMMUNOLOGY2027™ scientific program. Please give scientists who have not recently presented at one of our IMMUNOLOGY meetings the opportunity to highlight their research.  
• At least one chair per session should have some experience with chairing sessions, and at least one chair per session should be at the assistant professor (or equivalent) career stage or more senior.   
• Current AAI Council members and AMCC members are not permitted to submit a Guest Symposium proposal, or chair/speak in a Guest Symposium.