Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923 ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Issue: Annals Meeting Reports Wild immunology: converging on the real world Simon A. Babayan, 1 Judith E. Allen, 1 Jan E. Bradley, 2 Markus B. Geuking, 3 Andrea L. Graham, 4 Richard K. Grencis, 5 Jim Kaufman, 6 Kathy D. McCoy, 3 Steve Paterson, 7 Kenneth G. C. Smith, 8 Peter J. Turnbaugh, 9 Mark E. Viney, 10 Rick M. Maizels, 1 and Amy B. Pedersen 1 1 Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, Institutes of Immunology and Infection Research, and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Laboratories, Kings Buildings, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. 2 School of Biology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom. 3 Department of Clinical Research, Universit ¨ atsklinik f ¨ ur Viszerale Chirurgie und Medizin Inselspital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. 4 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. 5 Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. 6 Department of Pathology (and Department of Veterinary Medicine), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 7 Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom. 8 Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 9 FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 10 School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom Address for correspondence: Amy B. Pedersen, Advanced Fellow, Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, Institutes of Evolutionary Biology, Immunology, and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Kings Buildings, Ashworth Labs, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK. amy.pedersen@ed.ac.uk Recently, the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution sponsored a one-day symposium enti- tled “Wild Immunology.” The CIIE is a new Well- come Trust–funded initiative with the remit to con- nect evolutionary biology and ecology with research in immunology and infectious diseases in order to gain an interdisciplinary perspective on challenges to global health. The central question of the sym- posium was, “Why should we try to understand infection and immunity in wild systems?” Specifi- cally, how does the immune response operate in the wild and how do multiple coinfections and com- mensalism affect immune responses and host health in these wild systems? The symposium brought to- gether a broad program of speakers, ranging from laboratory immunologists to infectious disease ecol- ogists, working on wild birds, unmanaged animals, wild and laboratory rodents, and on questions rang- ing from the dynamics of coinfection to how com- mensal bacteria affect the development of the im- mune system. The meeting on wild immunology, organized by Amy Pedersen, Simon Babayan, and Rick Maizels, was held at the University of Edin- burgh on 30 June 2011. Introducing wild immunology In the wild, organisms face many pressures (e.g. par- asites, pathogens, commensal organisms, seasonal- ity, resource availability) that affect their health and fitness. A great deal of our knowledge on infec- tion and immunity, however, has been developed in highly controlled laboratory settings where vari- ation is minimized to more easily identify molecular and cellular immune mechanisms. While tradition- ally maintaining strong connections between the lab and the field, greater practical achievements in hu- man medicine and veterinary medicine have been difficult because of the challenges of associating de- tailed mechanistic interventions developed in the lab with what has been learned in the field about the effects on host fitness in natural settings. The aims of the conference on wild immunology were to bring these approaches together, to address shared ques- tions about the role of the immune system in natu- ral populations, and to better integrate laboratory- based immunology into the actual health of humans and animals. 1 Judi Allen (professor of immunobiology, Uni- versity of Edinburgh) introduced the topic of wild immunology from her perspective as a laboratory- based immunologist. She argued that wild immunology draws from both ecological immunol- ogy (eco-immunology) and laboratory-based im- munology, and aims to link immunity and infec- tion with host health and fitness in wild systems. 1 Specifically, Allen said, wild immunology is “about doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06251.x Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1236 (2011) 17–29 c  2011 New York Academy of Sciences. 17