About

In 2010, the explosion of knowledge about the biology of neutrophils and their central role in immunity inspired Prof. Patrice Poubelle, a rheumatologist conducting basic research on neutrophils, to organize a meeting with a laser-sharp focus on neutrophil research. He pitched the concept to several neutrophil-centric PIs working within, or with academic links to, a research group in Québec City led by Prof. Pierre Borgeat. Everyone eventually committed to bring Professor Poubelle’s vision to reality. Prof. François Marceau, a physician-scientist with extensive experience in organizing international scientific conferences on pharmacology, was also brought on board. And so it was that Profs Poubelle and Marceau, along with Profs Sylvain Bourgoin, Denis Girard, Maria Fernandes, Patrick Pierre McDonald, Claude Perreault, and William S Powell organized what became the first international symposium entirely dedicated to neutrophil biology in Québec City, in June 2012. 

The organizers agreed on the following fundamental principles, which have largely remained the recipe for subsequent Neutrophil Meetings, to this day. 1/ All invited speakers were to be renowned scientists in the field; 2/ There would only be plenary sessions (as opposed to parallel sessions); 3/ There would be short talks selected from the best abstracts (which could include the work of investigators new to the field); 4/ Session topics would reflect the latest scientific advances in the field. Likewise, the role of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) was thusly defined: 1/ The LOC should include at least one neutrophil biologist from each university in the province (or country), to maximize institutional funding and balance the workload; 2/ a LOC member would co-chair each session, along with one of the invited speakers, who would together propose distinguished speakers for their session. Because the original meeting was not sponsored by a scientific society, the organizers recognized the critical need to secure funding from academic institutions, government agencies, and corporate sponsors far in advance of the meeting. The organizers also received help from the Society for Leukocyte Biology (SLB), both for dissemination and some travel awards; the SLB has in fact been a trusted partner from the very beginning (special thanks to Prof. Bill Nauseef).  

Professor Poubelle was prescient in sensing the need for, and interest in, a meeting that focused solely on neutrophil biology. The first symposium held in Québec City in 2012 proved a resounding success, with more than 260 participants from 31 countries. Throughout the meeting, vocal enthusiasm among attendees made it clear that there needed to be future meetings. Because it takes some two years to organize a symposium, the next one was set for 2014, this time in Montréal. Neutrophil 2014 attracted 282 participants (from 30 countries), and the sustained and international success of the two initial meetings made clear that both the science and interest in neutrophil biology were global. Hence, it was proposed that the sites of subsequent meetings should alternate between North America and Europe. For our first meeting abroad, we teamed up with the SLB to hold a joint meeting in Verona, Italy in 2016. More than 370 participants from 30 countries attended, which validated the plan to alternate between continents. Sites of subsequent meetings followed this pattern; please see the full list here.

​