The 10th International Congress on Autoimmunity (ICA) was held on April 6-10 in Leipzig, Germany, at which nearly 1000 experts from more than 80 countries had hot discussions on the genetics, pathology, clinical diagnosis and latest therapies of more than 80 kinds of autoimmunity diseases. At the invitation of Congress Chairman Yehuda Shoenfeld, PUMCH Professor Zeng Xiaofeng, who is also director of the Rheumatism Branch of Chinese Medical Association and director of the Rheumatology and Immunology Branch of Chinese Medical Doctor Association, acted as co-chair of the Congress. More than 50 Chinese experts on clinical and lab work attended the event, and some of them were invited to give speeches.

Chinese scholars at the 10th ICA 

The Congress had a special session of "big data analysis, registration and epidemiology of autoimmunity diseases". As chairman of the session, Professor Zeng, first on behalf of the Chinese SLE Treatment and Research Group (CSTAR) and the Chinese Rheumatism Data Center (CRDC), gave a detailed introduction of the registration of rheumatism cases in China. Started from 2009, CSTAR has registered 30000 rheumatism cases and collected "big data" that contained 25000 samples; it achieved remarkable achievements in applying big data to the research of clinical and epidemiological characteristics of rheumatism in China, especially SLE, published CSTAR series articles I～VII, selected out biological indicators of NPSLE and SLE-related PAH, and organized the compilation of China consensus on SLE. The platform also extends to support research on more rheumatism including rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, metabolic arthritis, vasculitis and systemic sclerosis. 

Professor Tian Xinping shared China’s research results in Takayasu arteritis. PUMCH started in July 2013 to set up a national databank of Takayasu arteritis, which is so far the world’s largest patient cohort. Based on the databank, observational study and interventional study were carried out to draw up a background picture of Takayasu arteritis in China, and research on remission induction and maintainable remission were also carried out. Professor Li Mengtao gave a detailed introduction of the developments in rheumatology and immunology in China, as well as practical problems in autoantibody lab tests including manual operation, qualitative detection, combination and strict batch processing, and pointed out that the final solution lies in technological innovation and upgrade.