European Federation for Immunogenetics

Mission and goals

It is the mission and goal of EFI:

1. To support the development of Immunogenetics in Europe as a discipline in medicine and promote research and training in this field.
2. To provide a forum for exchange of scientific information and to reinforce the skills and knowlegde of young scientists and others working in the field.
3. To create a formal organisation of workers in the field of immunogenetics, histocompatiblity testing and transplantation.
4. To develop recommendations for standardisation of techniques, quality control and criteria for accreditation and to support their implementation.
5. To promote the organisation and use of immunogenetic databases.
6. To develop relations with organisations with similar aims.

The association shall abstain from any type of political activity. 

European Federation for Immunogenetics (EFI) recognises the value of having a diverse group of people with a diversity of thinking and perspectives involved in EFI and wishes to use the differences that people bring with them as an important resource in furthering our important mission and objectives.

Equality, diversity & inclusion policy

President's page

From the EFI President -  EFI Newsletter, issue 103, April 2024

Dear EFI friends

Happy springtime to everyone in the northern hemisphere.

The photograph that accompanies this letter was taken last month when I attended the 16^th East West Immunogenetics Conference, held in Vienna and organised by Professor Gottfried Fisher and Professor Tony Slavcev. I have attended several of these meetings and as usual the organisation was excellent and the quality and diversity of the scientific presentations first-rate. Congratulations to Gottfried and Tony and their organising team for another successful event.

We are fast approaching the major EFI event of the year, our conference. I know that Jean Villard and the other members of the organising committee have been very busy arranging the sessions to ensure that the science presented will be stimulating and that we will also have enjoyable social interactions. The programme for this conference is published in this newsletter, so those members that are attending can start planning which sessions they wish to attend.  

This is my last contribution to the EFI newsletter as President. It has truly been an honour to serve the society in this office. The most enjoyable part is the interactions I have with the members of the Executive Committee during our meetings. We have dealt with several challenges over the years and I feel that we have worked well as a team, to ensure the continued operation of our organisation for the benefit of our members. My thanks to all the Executive Committee members (past and present) for your support, and a special thanks to Dave Rolen who in addition to being the EFI Secretary, has the responsibility for managing the EFI office in Leiden.

I also welcome two new councillors to the Executive Committee; Katerina Tarassi from Greece and Sandra Tafulo from Portugal who will take up their positions as I step down during the General Assembly in Geneva. I wish you well in your roles supporting EFI.

The real EFI work is undertaken by the EFI committees: Accreditation, Education, External Proficiency Testing (EPT), IT & Bioinformatics, Scientific, and Standards. The chairs and members work tirelessly to achieve their goals to ensure we have the appropriate structures in place to support our members. The most definite highlights from the last few years include the progress made by the Education Committee with the introduction of the ETHIQ diploma. We should all be proud that our organisation has successfully delivered a training programme that targets junior members of our laboratories and I hope that this programme is able to develop and be used by members from many different countries that do not have their own training programme.

So we have training for technical staff, and together with the UEMS we have an examination for staff at the laboratory director stage of their career. Our laboratories remain accredited and the efforts made by the Accreditation Committee to streamline the processes involved will ensure that the programme remains effective. The Standards Committee ensure that the standards that those of us in clinical testing laboratories work with are kept updated and much work is going into the production of a completely new version to incorporate advances in the challenges we encounter with handling big data, an area of interest for our IT and Bioinformatics Committee.

The Scientific Committee has responsibilities including review of the abstracts for the annual conference and applications for the Julia Bodmer Award.  They also nominate the recipient for EFI’s prestigious award: The Ceppellini Lecture. This year the recipient of the award is Professor Jamie Rossjohn, from Monash University, Australia. Professor Rossjohn’s research has focused on the use of structural methods to enable a greater understanding of how T-cells function in the generation of immune responses against different antigen types. Congratulations to Professor Rossjohn and I look forward to hearing his lecture in Geneva.

I wish to thank Helle Bruunsgaard for her time as chair of the EPT Committee, who has stepped down after three years.  The EPT Committee play an important role in providing standards for providers of EPT schemes ensuring that the proficiency testing undertaken by laboratories meets the standards required for clinical care and also EFI accreditation. Most recently the committee have been updating the process for inter-laboratory exchanges which can be utilised when no established EPT scheme exists for a particular test, for example testing for MICA antibodies. We do not know who the replacement for Helle will be, and in the meantime my thanks to Yvonne Zoet for taking over as interim chair.

I began my presidency with the fallout from the pandemic. A significant portion of EFI’s income is derived from the benefits of our annual conference. As we did not have a conference in 2020, and 2021 was virtual, this income source was severely depleted. However due to the successful management of the EFI finances by the current and past Treasurer and the successes of the Amsterdam and Nantes conferences, and anticipated success in Geneva, we are back in a safe situation. 

So I feel that I am handing the EFI mug to Professor Marco Andreani with an EFI organisation that is in a good situation.  It has been a pleasure working with Marco during the last year in his role as President Elect. Marco has much experience of EFI matters due to having been a member of the Education committee, an EFI Commissioner and an Executive Committee Councillor. He is truly committed to the EFI cause. I am confident that EFI is in excellent hands for the future.  I wish Marco and his Executive Committee all the very best for the next three years (and of course beyond).

Of course you are only reading this letter due to the work undertaken by Sebastiaan Heidt our EFI newsletter editor. Thank you Sebastiaan for all the work you do for the newsletter which keeps our members up to date with all the EFI activities.

In closing, my thanks go to Sandra, Ingrid and Sonja in the EFI office. Without your support none of us would get any EFI work done. I wish you all well in the future.

I look forward to welcoming those of you attending the conference in Geneva.

with best wishes

Ann-Margaret Little, EFI President

The past Presidents are:

Obituary. In memory of Erik Thorsby (1938-2021).

With sadness we received the message that our good friend and colleague Erik Thorsby has passed away. Erik was one of the pioneers, who made several important contributions to the field of histocompatibility and immunogenetics.

Obituary. In memory of Erik Thorsby (1938-2021).

Obituary: Prof. Dr. Johannes Joseph (Jon) van Rood (1926-2017)

Prof. dr. Jon J. van Rood, a distinguished member of our scientific community, passed away on 21 July 2017 at 91 years of age. In light of his scientific legacy, we wish to commemorate some of his most significant achievements and contributions.

Obituary: Prof. Dr. Johannes Joseph (Jon) van Rood (1926-2017)

EFI Constitution

The organisation was founded on March 6th 1985 bearing the name: European Foundation for Immunogenetics, hereafter EFI. It is REGULATED by articles 21-79 of the local civil law and by the present articles. It is recorded in the Register of Associations in the Tribunal d'Instance de Strasbourg under No XXXXVIII No 70. The name European Federation for Immunogenetics was adopted on June 11 1996 and recorded in the Register of Associations on 17 January 1997. The current articles were adopted by the General Assembly (the EFI membership) on 28th April 2023 and subsequent acceptance by the French Court.

French Legal Statutes - 28 April 2023

English Translation - 28 April 2023

Overview of the European Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Conference

EFI sponsors several awards to recognize scientific accomplishments and contributions to the fields of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, and to service to the society:

• Ceppellini Lecture
• Julia Bodmer Award
• EFI Medal
• Best Abstract Award / Jon van Rood Award
• Best Poster Award

For more information on the above award, please click here.

Accreditation Committee

The Accreditation Committee is to develop criteria for accreditation and to support their implementation.

Education Committee

To promote education and training for technical, scientific, and medically qualified staff in the field of transplantation immunology, histocom­patibility and immunogenetics throughout Europe and beyond.

EPT Committee

External Proficiency Testing (EPT) is a mandatory part of the EFI accreditation process for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (H&I) laboratories. The major goal of the EFI EPT Committee (EPTC) is to harmonise EPT for H&I affiliated with EFI.

IT & Bioinformatics Committee

The IT & Bioinformatics Committee is installed in 2018 to support the Executive Committee and all other Committees with IT related matters. 

Scientific Committee

The EFI Scientific Committee (SC) is responsible for promoting Science related to Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics within EFI. This includes maintaining relationships to other Scientific Societies in the field, promotion of international scientific collaborations and recruitment of new young investigators to the field.

Standards Committee 

The aim of the Standards Committee is to develop recommendations for the standardisation of techniques, quality control and criteria for accreditation and to support their implementation.