Prize Wnners in the Iniative of Partnership in Immunology and Education PE

1. Prize

Reinhard Nestelbacher
DNA-Consult
Salzburg Austria

The Immunological Classroom
School-courses with The Flying Lab

Since several years the Allergy Research Group at the University of Salzburg works together closely with DNA-Consult in order to design and test new concepts to stimulate a better understanding of immunology and allergy-research. The presented project helps schools, teachers and pupils since several years to educate immunology in a practical and exciting manner. Due to the fact that allergy is a wide-spread disease we use it as a “carrier” for motivating pupils to take a closer look at the immunological research and the medical conse-quences. One of the most important aims is to transfer the enthusi-asm of us scientists concerning immunology to teachers and pupils.

We present three concepts in this application

1. The (classical) Immunological Classroom in cooperation with the Museum of Natural History in Salzburg. Around 30 classes pro year get an “initial .re” to deal with the topic allergy and immunology in the school.
2. The Flying Lab: Coming with a running lab to the school and providing a fascinating, practical day in molecular science.
   
3. Children and Allergy Research. Fascinating children aged 7-12 for immunological research and working in the lab.
   

Winner of a Subscription for Nature Immunology

Magnus M. Gees
Klinikum der Universität Freiburg
Immundefizienz:
Klinik und Tiermodelle

„Virus Attack – activity game for a better understanding of the immune system“

Within the scope of the immunological game “virus attack” the various workings of the immune system will be presented in the form of different cell types by students/the public. The teammates will therefore wear coloured T-shirts, either red ones representing viruses (V), grey ones representing dendritic cells (DC), blue ones representing T cells (T) or yellow ones representing B cells (B) and ‘behave’ in the way the respective cells interact in the human immune system. In this way the workings of the immune defence situation will be demonstrated and the interested spectator receives a ‘real’ insight into the complex processes happening in our immune system.

Winner of a Subscription for Immunity

Isabella Schöll, PhD and Krisztina Szalai, MSc
Inst. of Pathophysiology
Medical University of Vienna

Food allergy: Workshop at the "Children `s University Vienna" (KinderUni Wien)

Food allergies affect around 2% of the adult population and 6-8% of young children, with an increasing prevalence. Food allergic reactions are responsible for a variety of symptoms, which can be mild or severe, involving the skin (eczema), gastrointestinal tract (abdominal pain, vomiting), and respiratory tract (wheezing, difficult breathing) and may be due to IgE-mediated or non-IgE-mediated mechanisms. Therefore it is important to introduce the basics of allergy and provide help for affected adults and children with food allergy.

For this reason, a “week of health” was organized in August 2005 in Neckenmarkt, Austria, and was evaluated with excellence. The workshops, seminars and oral presentations also included a seminar with the title "Food allergy: When food becomes dangerous." for adults. With the same objective we are going to give a workshop also for children at the age of 7-12 years in Vienna, 18-19 June 2006, under the organization of the Children’s Bureau "KinderUni Wien".

We prepare the workshop for children, who are allergic to different food or are siblings/friends of such children at the age of 7-12 years. The aim of our work is that the children know what is the basic mechanism of an allergic reaction via a short oral presentation including a brief film of a mast cell releasing mediators and how to manage food allergy as a “different life-style”. We help them to select in the supermarket the safe foods, we explain what to do in an acute situation and what are the preventive possibilities. Additionally we give a brochure with a summary of the acquainted knowledge and a recipe-book for food allergic children

Winner of a Subscription for European Journal of Immunology

Nathalie Debard
Coordinator of Immunology online
ISREC

Immunology online: an e-learning program

Immunology online (http://iol.bio-med.ch) is a web-based immunology course for students of immunology who are undertaking a bachelor, master or doctoral degree.

The broad content of Immunology Online is divided into basic and clinical immunology. The basic immunology content comprises six modules that cover all aspects of fundamental immunology, ranging from antigen sampling and presentation to leukocyte trafficking, cytokine networks, and innate and adaptive immunity. The clinical immunology content will cover inflammation, autoimmunity, immune deficiencies, allergy, transplantation, immunity to infections, tumour immunology and vaccinology.

The course consists of hypertext, animations, histological pictures and videos. Each module contains learning objectives, a printable handout and end-of-section quizzes.

Winner of a Subscription for Immunology Letters

Gesine Schürmann
Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
Jeffrey Modell Zentrum für Immundefekte
Abteilung Klinische Immunologie

Lectures for school children

Some 15 collegues from different departments of the Hannover Medical School are teaching Immunology lessons during the Day of Immunology.The target was to achieve a mostly homogenous group of schoolchildren, as was also suggested by teachers and students in last year´s evaluation form. Thus, we especially invited high school students who were taking their major field of study in biology. Being in contact both with the Ministry of Education and the major school book publishers in Lower Saxony enabled us to carefully arrange a program for high school children. The publishers provided us with  school books and also donated 8 prizes (valuable books and cd-roms for examination review) for our last event for this year´s DOI, the quiz.