Symposium 2026

IEFM and the Scientific Chair welcome you to this year’s symposium and introduce its theme and objectives. Prof. Dr. med. Stefan R. Bornstein, a pioneer in the field and speaker at our previous two symposiums, joins us with a welcome message.

A compilation of the research showing the surprising percentage of chronic disease due to environmental metals and chemicals. Many chronic diseases from diabetes to ADHD to cancer and even elevated rate of death are due to specific environmental toxins.

Polymer particles can now be detected and quantified in human matrices. This keynote presents the analytical methods behind those measurements, their limits of detection and the contamination controls they require. It sets out what the current data show about exposure levels in the general population, and draws a clear line between established exposure findings and the health consequences that remain hypothetical.

The lunch break will take place directly in front of the hall in the foyer.

What the standard laboratory cannot see still accumulates. Dott.ssa Gatti pioneered the use of electron microscopy with elemental analysis to identify inorganic particles inside human tissue, in tumours, placentas and germ cells. This keynote covers sample preparation, elemental assignment and why such particles escape routine diagnostics. The findings are presented as descriptive and hypothesis-generating; no causal link to clinical endpoints is claimed.

Patients with persistent, multisystem symptoms often carry a cumulative burden of environmental exposures rather than a single isolated aetiology. This lecture presents a structured framework covering mould, mycotoxins, chemicals, metals and host genetic susceptibility, and how to weight them in clinical assessment. It addresses the differential diagnoses that must be excluded before any attribution to an environmental exposure, and states for which elements of the approach robust evidence exists and for which it does not.

Time for networking and exchange with our speakers.

The emergence of disease-modifying therapies has transformed the management of Alzheimer’s disease. This session first sets out the approval and guideline status of the anti-amyloid antibodies, including their adverse event profiles, and then examines the biological rationale and early clinical experience behind extracorporeal approaches. The level of evidence available for apheresis is stated explicitly and distinguished from that of the approved therapies.

The Scientific Chair draws together the day’s findings and looks ahead to the second day.

All guests are invited to dinner with a wonderful view of Lake Constance. There will be plenty of time to exchange ideas and discuss the topics of the day in more depth. The dinner is a social event and not part of the accredited programme.

Toxicants stored in bone, adipose tissue, connective tissue and organ parenchyma can persist for decades. This keynote covers how they distribute across body compartments, the physiological elimination routes through kidney, bile and gut, the biochemistry of phase I and phase II hepatic conjugation, and the risk of mobilising without assured elimination capacity. For each approach discussed, Dr. Pizzorno states where the evidence is solid and where it remains preliminary. No individual products or preparations are presented.

This keynote presents five years of follow-up in an unselected cohort after exposure to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination: free light chains rising from a verified normal baseline, monoclonal and polyclonal gammopathy appearing after a latency of three to four years, and antibody titres that stay elevated. Observed frequencies are set against an expected incidence whose derivation and reference population are disclosed. This is an observational cohort without a control group.

Time for networking and exchange with our speakers.

The growth of scientific publication forces researchers to choose between disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary breadth. This session presents a multi-agent AI system for hypothesis generation, worked through on a research question that has actually been processed: which mechanism governs the return of perfluoroalkyl substances to plasma after partial removal, and what follows from it for timing. It covers how the question was framed and constrained, what the system produced, and where it falls short, in particular insufficient testing for falsifiability and the need to verify every reference and every mechanistic assumption. No live demonstration or product presentation takes place.

A moderated panel with all speakers on which of the findings presented can be considered established, where the evidence is incomplete, and what study designs would be needed to close those gaps. Followed by closing remarks.