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Eur. J. Immunol. 2008. 38: 2056–2059

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Global Day of Immunology 2008
The global Day of Immunology (DoI) has
truly become a reality; I am grateful andpleased. The DoI, which first took place
on April 29, 2005 in Europe, hasestablished itself as a solid exercise
beyond Europe. The 2008 DoI has
witnessed major activities in 21 different
countries around the world (four outsideEurope). We are pleased that many newactivities have been added to the list
established by the DOI in previous years
and, most importantly, that nationalsocieties outside of Europe have been
rallied to join in. For further details,
please have a look at the DoI website(www.dayofimmunology.org).
There
you will find short descriptions of themany activities that took place all over
the world. Although the DoI is celebratedon April 29 each year, we feel the effects
of its realisation throughout the year.
After all, the purpose of this endeavour
is to raise awareness amongst the public,
the press, politicians and decision makers about the critical importance of theimmune system in everybody's everyday
life. The readers of the European Journalof Immunology are active immunologists
and hence need not be told about theimportance of the immune system;
however, I hope that you will have alook at the DoI website and become
enthused to organize new activities
within your national society, irrespectiveof your location within the world. You
can begin now, since, the next DoI 2009
will be the culmination of all activities
organised throughout the coming year
to raise awareness about the immune
system's benefits.
Scrolling through our DoI website,
you will see that immunologists inalmost every major city across Australia
participated in DoI activities, and that
the Japanese immunologists have organized activities for public and highschool students with a major event
taking place near Tokyo under the name“Men-eki Fushigi Mirai” (2008). Our
Japanese colleagues have published abook about immunology (Fig. 1), formulated as a result of their outreachactivities (see the accompanying article
One small step for immunologists), andwe hope that this will in turn stimulate
new ideas globally. Now to Europe
where most activities took place; ourBritish and Portuguese colleagues haveincreased the number of discussion anddebate rounds taking place at seniorschools all over Britain and Portugal,respectively. Our Greek colleagues havesucceeded in creating a TV commercial“Potent immune system for good healthand better quality of life”, which wastelevised through a major TV station(see the accompanying article Children,art and immunology). As a memberof the German Society of Immunology,
I am particularly grateful that German
immunologists have been extremely
active from the beginning of the DoI

in 2005 and, in 2008, they haveparticipated with numerous activities
in major university cities such as Erlangen, Hannover and Berlin.
These examples emphasize that theDoI has become firmly established. I
want to thank all of you who actively
participated in the DoI 2008 in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Czech
Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia,
Slovak Republic, Sweden, Turkey andthe United Kingdom. I hope moreimmunologists will join us for next
year's DoI. You may want to start
thinking about it now, so that youractivities are well prepared in advance ofthe DoI April 29, 2009.
Stefan H. E. Kaufmann
President, European Federation of Immunological Societies
e-mail: Kaufmann@mpiib-berlin.mpg.deOne small step for
immunologists

Figure 1. The cover of the book
Immunology for the Public devised by
the Japanese Society for Immunology.

f 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This spring, the Japanese Society for
Immunology (JSI) organized its outreach activity, “Men-eki Fushigi Mirai”,
which literally translates as “Immunity,Wonder, and Future”, once again very
successfully. The “Men-eki Fushigi Mirai”
is a JSI-sponsored activity that started
last year, in coordination with the Global
Day of Immunology. This year, the “Meneki Fushigi Mirai” was held for two days
starting on May 3, at Nippon Kagaku
Mirai Kan, the National Museum ofEmerging Science and Innovation, inTokyo. To our happy surprise andsatisfaction, the two-day event gathered
as many as 4,460 people. During the twodays, members of the JSI gave 28 shorttalks, and presented immunology bywww.eji-journal.eu

Eur. J. Immunol. 2008. 38: 2056–2059

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Table 1 Table of contents of 'Wonders of theimmune system: how do we protect ourselvesfrom germs?'

Part I. The immune system

Figure 1. Learning about immunology ata young age.

way of a variety of educational posters,videos and 'hands on' material such as
cultured immune cells, live animals,
hand-made models of lymphocyte–dendritic cell interactions and videos, in-linewith last year's activities [1]. In addition
to this event in Tokyo, we organized
seven outreach activities in cities in thevicinity of Tokyo, which attracted morethan 700 citizens. This means that theJSI has managed to directly communicate with more than 5,100 citizens
through its outreach activities this year.
Additionally, the JSI extended its
outreach activity in a new dimension bycompiling a book for the public. The
book is entitled “Wonders of the Immune System: how do we protect
ourselves from germs?” (Fig. 1). The
original idea of the book came from theeducational posters we had displayed atour outreach activity last year; wethought that by refining and buildingon these posters, we could possibly makea book suitable for laypersons and evenchildren. Based on this idea, two of theJSI committees, namely the Committee
on Public Affairs and the Education
Promoting Committee, started working
together, and with the help of a Japanesescience publisher, Yodosha, we finallyproduced such a book. The book explains plainly in the Japanese language
what the immune system is all about. It
is aimed at a diverse spectrum of people
ranging from primary school to highschool students, as well as adults. It has
69 pages with numerous illustrations,and consists of two parts; the first partdescribes how the immune system
works, and the second part describes
the role of the immune system underdisease conditions, such as infection,

1. What is the immune system?
* What is the immune system doing inthe body?
* Why do we not suffer from the samedisease twice?
* Where in the body can we find theimmune system?
* There are many players in the immune system* Three ways to fight against germs
2. The organization of the immune system* How does the immune system recognize harmful germs?
* The immune system can protect us
from countless types of germs* How the immune system remembers
the germs it has encountered before
3. Where do immune cells come from andplay their roles?
* Where are immune cells made?
* Where do immune cells do their jobs?
* How do immune cells find their way
around the body?
* How do immune cells help eachother?
* How does immune system prevent its
immune cells from overworking?
* How immune cells tell the difference
between bad germs and harmlessthings in our body
Part II. Diseases and the immune system
1. Immune system fights against infections* What are germs?
* What are infections?
* What is AIDS?
* Can we prevent the spread of bird flu?
* Are there limits to vaccination?
2. Autoimmunity is caused by the immunesystem* What are autoimmune diseases?
* What are the types of the autoimmune
diseases?
* How rheumatoid arthritis comes
about and its treatments
3. Immune reactions can also cause allergies* What are allergies?
* Types of allergic disease* How asthma develops* Will we ever overcome hay fever?
4. Can the immune system fight cancer?
* What is cancer?
* Anticancer immunity* Making use of the immune system,“immunotherapy”, to treat cancer

f 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

allergy, autoimmune disease and cancer.
A table of contents of the book is shownin Table 1.
Because the book was the very firstattempt at such a project for us, the text
and illustrations probably need to berefined by incorporating opinions on thebook from the public. We hope, however, that this represents at least a small
step for immunologists toward theglobal success of the Day of Immunology
and we also hope that it will lead to abigger step forward towards a better
understanding of the impact of immunology in the public, as well as among
policy-makers in the near future.
Yousuke Takahama1 and Masayuki Miyasaka2*
1Chair, JSI Committee on Public Affairs
2President, JSI*e-mail: mmiyasak@orgctl.med.osaka-u.ac.jp
1. Takahama, Y., Kawamoto, H., ToyamaSorimachi, N. and Miyasaka, M., JapaneseSociety for Immunology goes public: Immunology outreach in Japan. Eur. J.
Immunol. 2007. 37: 1717-1719.

Children,art and immunology
The Hellenic Society of Immunology(HSI), a member of the European
Federation of Immunological Societies(EFIS), has participated in the celebration of the Day of Immunology (DoI)
since its introduction on April 29 2005.
The DoI is a successful EFIS initiative
promoting awareness of immunology
among the decision makers fromscience, education, politics, as well as
the general public [1].
In Greece, this year's activities lasted
for almost two months, being held
throughout April and May, and included
TV presentations, press conferences, andnewspaper interviews. In addition, twoseparate events took place in high andprimary schools in Athens and Thessaloniki respectively.
A TV commercial informing thegeneral public about the essence andthe context of the science of Immunology was broadcast on national televisionand radio networks from the 21st to 29thof April (Fig. 1). The aim of thecommercial was to inform and increasewww.eji-journal.eu

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