Over 200 years ago, immunology started out with the introduction of one of the most successful medical therapies: vaccination. Smallpox vaccination made it possible to eventually eradicate smallpox. Even today, the principle of vaccination continues to be one of the most successful medical therapy strategies. Just recently, Harald zur Hausen, who will hold the opening lecture at the congress, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the development of a vaccine against viruses which can cause cervical cancer. Immunology plays a role not only in infections, but also in a whole number of diseases which might not have much in common at first glance. However, it is always the immune system which is the cause or the driving force of the disease process. Such diseases include allergies, transplant rejections, inflammatory diabetes, gastrointestinal inflammation and, finally, a number of rheumatic diseases. More than half of the population in Germany suffers from one of these wide-spread diseases.

Over the past decades, immunology has helped to define new treatment strategies, so that today most of these patients can be treated medically to such an extent that the disease does not progress any further. "We owe this to immunology. But it also shows that we urgently need to continue immunological research," says Radbruch."Because we still cannot cure most of these diseases. We need new methods of curing these diseases, which will be developed on the basis of a better understanding of the immune system. The European Congress of Immunology 2009 in Berlin will set new standards for this."

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