A Brief History of International Symposia on Amyloidosis

Abstract

The history of International Symposia started in 1967, when the First Symposium on the subject was held in Groningen, The Netherland. Dr. Enno Mandema and his colleagues organized the meeting in September 1967, which greatly helped to provide the opportunity to participate from all over the world and to make a new society for scientific discussions on amyloidosis. In the proceedings edited by Mandema et al (1968), table of contents included 7 different parts consisting of (I) General subjects, (II) Cellular aspects in the pathogenesis of amyloidosis, (III) Immunological aspects of amyloidosis, (IV) Electron microscopy of amyloid, (V) Histochemistry and Chemical composition of amyloid, (VI) Experimental amyloidosis and (VII) Clinical studies on amyloidosis. This was the meeting where an agreement was obtained in amyloidosis research that it is significantly useful to have Congo-red stain under polarization microscopy and to have high resolution ultrastructure as a tool in the detection of the composition of amyloid. The diagnostic criteria of amyloid were thus clearly established. Although immunological aspects were in dispute at the meeting, chemical approach to identify the nature of the amyloid substances was not ready yet (1).