WELCOME NOTE

Dear Friends,

In 1988 the book The Mosaic of Autoimmunity was published by Elsevier and sold by the thousands. This book dealing with the factors associated with autoimmune disease established the multifactorial mechanisms involved in induction of autoimmune conditions.

On the 10-11th of February, 2008, 20 years later, all the pebbles
of the Mosaic have been expanded. From HLA we moved to
more defined genes, from just sex hormones we have extended
our knowledge to the importance of porlactin, Vit D and other hormones, and the environmental factors list biologics that are used for therapy as well as airport vicinity, silicone and various vaccines. Thus it seems that we have to gather again and to summarize, discuss and nurture our knowledge to those additional players in the etiology of autoimmunity. We hope that such discussion will lead to novel aspects of prediction therapies and prevention. The meeting of the Mosaic of Autoimmunity in the beautiful resort hotel of the Kfar Maccabiah, to honor Yehuda Shoenfeld’s first autoimmune book, followed by many others books, amongst them; Textbook of Autoantibodies, Infection and Autoimmunity, Cancer and Autoimmunity and Atherosclerosis and Autoimmunity. We hope that this brain storming of world known experts in autoimmunity will be an enjoyable event and a basis for new investigations and collaborations.

The Organizing Committee
Prof. Miri Blank, Dr. Gisele Goddard, Dr. Howard Amital, Dr. Yaniv Sherer, Ms. Rachel Guri