33rd Symposium: Montreal, Canada 2023

Minutes (If You Can Call Them That) of the 33rd Biennial Symposium of the CIA

By MITCH GRAYSON

Steve Galli has retired from keeping the minutes, and since I wanted so desperately to be in the minutes, I agreed on Friday night of the Montreal meeting to put them together.

This was the first CIA meeting since the pandemic, other than the virtual meetings that Bruce Bochner created while he was President in exile.

The karma of the universe has been upset – the CIA meetings were always in even years, but now because of the pandemic, they will occur in odd years. I’m not sure what this really means for the CIA, but it is likely related to climate change.

The 33^rd biennial symposium of the CIA took place from the 10^th to the 14^th of October 2023 in Montreal Canada. The meeting took place at the Intercontinental Hotel and its adjacent convention center. When the meeting began it was cool and rainy.

We did get some significant exercise, as the sessions were on the 5^th floor of the conference center, while the posters were on the 2^nd floor, and lunch was in the caves under the building. Not entirely sure why there were caves, but….

 

WEDNESDAY

The Keynote Lecture was provided by Don MacGlashan, Jr. who gave us a detailed biophysical journey detailing the interaction of IgE and its high affinity receptor.

We were treated to a video of a mouse scratching its face over and over.

Due to flight delays, Josh Boyce was forced to be a B cell biologist. Let’s just say that it is probably better for him to stick with being a mast cell and lipid biologist.

First time to have lightening round abstracts – a very short 3-minute presentation of select abstracts chosen for posters. This was the worst of both worlds – having to make and print a poster AND create a slide deck.

Lora Bankova gave a lightening round abstract presentation with nearly 40 slides. The instructions were no more than 4 slides. Amazingly, she stayed within the 3-minute time restriction.

At the break we were treated to Palm Trees as a snack – according to some attendees they were chewy and sticky.

The Relaxing Lecture, given by Timothy Caufield, was about misinformation, but may not have been that relaxing as we also learned that Tucker Carlson irradiates his testicles.

 

THURSDAY

There was a Pro/Con debate between Parameswaran Nair and Sally Wenzel on whether biologics have solved the problem of type 2 asthma that really became one of the most agreed Pro/Con debate ever when Par added “maybe” and “possibly” to his Pro side of the argument. During Param’s argument he showed a picture of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, it was lost on at least ½ the audience as they had no idea who these people were, and in fact, weren’t even born when the Iron Lady and Ronny were around.

Param said that measuring FEV₁ for airway function is like GI docs measuring the force of our farts to measure intestinal function. He later said this “just came out.”

Raif Gaha, while presenting the Carl Prausnitz lecture on insights in atopic dermatitis, made the seminal discovery that the pointer required a PhD to get to work.

The weather amazingly improved, and the skies cleared as we headed out for the traditional boat ride. Before the ride began, Charlie Brown’s teacher announced important safety information over the loudspeaker. And as we departed, we passed scantily clad folk who were at a spa. Thomas Bieber noted that everyone was looking inside on the boat and not at the scenery.

I, while wearing a fedora – in fact I wore the fedora for the entire meeting and never seemed to take it off -- made an impassioned plea to be included in the minutes, saying that my career goal is to save rodents’ respiratory viral infections. The statement was met with stunned silence, but since I’m making the minutes, I’ve included myself in them and spent an inordinate amount of time reminding you that I am included in the minutes.

 

FRIDAY

Brad Undem started a super-spreader event when demonstrating the sound of a firing neuron, by going “brrrrrrr” from the podium.

The business meeting started with a moment of silence in honor of those CIA members who had passed on since the meeting in Majorca.

There were no minutes from Majorca, or if there were minutes, they either melted in the sun or were burned in a paella.

Everything that could be said at the business meeting, was said by our current CIA President, Thomas Bieber, maybe more than once.

For reasons that are unclear, Tom Platts-Mills was unable to insert dead milk into any of the discussion at the business meeting.

We voted to change the bylaws of the CIA, making a new membership category and some other changes (see the bylaws to see what was changed). Miraculously, the paper ballet votes for the bylaws change were counted before the ballots had been carried out of the room.

In a show of religious zeal, Judah Denburg used one of the ballots as a yarmulka.

The Paul Kallos Lecture was given by Susan Lynch who discussed how early life microbiomes shape immune function and childhood allergy.

In the evening we had the Gala dinner, where contortionists performed, and we inducted nearly ½ the city of Montreal into the CIA.

After the Gala, a group of CIA members met with the Canadian military attaché to Russia. It seems he asked for the wrong CIA people to meet with him.

 

SATURDAY

On Saturday commenting on Charlotte Castenmiller’s talk about Ara h 2 bioparticles, Tom Platts Mills suggested the bioparticles should be injected into Ronald van Ree because he had so much skin, apparently because Tom had nothing to say about dead milk. Tom also said he would fly over to Amsterdam to see Ronald injected with antigen containing bioparticles after Karina Canziani’s presentation. Not sure why Tom was so excited to inject Ronald’s skin, and not with dead milk.

We found out that apparently adjuvants are more important than proteins.

Andrea Vereda told us that she could not provide any p values for her data, as p values were strictly forbidden by her statistician.

Lisa Spencer made sure we knew that Lee Reinhardt is at his desk at 8:30am. Why we needed to know this was unclear.

During the Presidential Lecture given by Bruce “Siglec” Bochner about the Long and Winding Road to Siglec based therapeutics, we found out that the tulip is where the sugar will bind -- yes, I’m sure it will.  He also imparted the wisdom that “persistence helps sometimes, but luck helps even more.” However, even though Lisa Beck and Angela Hazcku got goosebumps, we did not hear any Beatles. Apparently, this was a different “Long and Winding Road.”

Judah Denburg reminded us that with this meeting, the CIA had been infused with youth and energy, whether this was related to the fact that the final snacks were energy balls was less clear.

Before the meeting ended, our esteemed president, Thomas Bieber reminded us that “everything has been said, but not yet by me.”

 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The CIA management staff turned over since the Majorca meeting – instead of Kate Filipiak, we now had Katie Komassa and Kira Mngodo as our staff, and they did an absolutely fabulous job making the meeting a wonderful success.

Tom Platts-Mills was fixated on dead milk and asked many questions throughout the meeting – except during the business meeting, for which we were all relieved.

Apparently, meetings in Montreal attract the AERD mafia from Boston.        

Patrick Brennan intoned that the CIA is like the AAAAI but with just the cool old guys. He also asked me not to quote him, so please don’t quote me.

Whitney Stevens was paid 30 cents (Canadian) to stay in science and continue research. Whether this unorthodox approach will reverse the decline in number of physician-scientists remains to be seen.

The good Samaritan award, if we had one, which we don’t, would go to Lora Bankova who wore a different scarf every day, but when someone was cold, she shared her scarf with them.

Apparently, we had many paparazzi at this meeting, as there were cell phones being held up and pictures being taken through all of the presentations. What happened to these photos is unknown.

 

These minutes were respectfully submitted after the meeting by the fedora wearing previously mentioned Mitch Grayson.