Symposium 2026

Ayus Medical Devices AG and the Swiss Institute for Environmental and Functional Medicine (IEFM) warmly welcome you to this year’s Unburden.
Prof. Bornstein, a pioneer in the field and speaker at our previous two symposiums, joins us this year with a special welcome message.

Massive emissions of microplastics from modern products are causing everyday exposures in humans. Most people are unaware of just how widespread these exposures have become, and what this could mean for human health. What are these multifaceted bundles of polymers and chemicals, how do we measure them, and what are they doing in the human bloodstream?

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

What the standard lab cannot see still accumulates. Dr. Antonietta Gatti pioneered the use of electron microscopy to find environmental nanoparticles inside human tissue – in tumours, in placentas, in sperm. Her work forces an uncomfortable question into every exposome discussion: if we cannot measure what is there, how do we treat it? This keynote bridges atmospheric and industrial exposure to the cellular and reproductive consequences we are only beginning to map.

Patients with persistent, multisystem symptoms often represent a cumulative burden of environmental exposures rather than a single isolated etiology. This lecture examines the concept of total body burden, encompassing mold, mycotoxins, chemicals, metals, and host genetic susceptibility, and considers its relevance in clinical assessment and management. Emphasis will be placed on a structured framework for recognition, prioritization, and treatment, with practical guidance for approaching the patient whose presentation does not fit conventional diagnostic patterns.

Time for networking and exchange with our speakers.

The emergence of disease-modifying therapies has transformed the management of Alzheimer’s disease. Alongside advances in anti-amyloid therapies, interest is growing in interventions that may target the biological processes underlying neurodegeneration.
This session explores the rationale and early clinical experience behind one of the most intriguing emerging approaches in Alzheimer’s care. 

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 more effectively we mobilise, the more effectively we clear. Toxicants stored in bone, adipose tissue, connective tissue, and organ parenchyma can persist for decades – but targeted mobilisation strategies can shift them into the vascular compartment, where extracorporeal therapies like Inuspheresis® reach them. Dr. Joseph Pizzorno has spent thirty years building the clinical framework for safe, systematic mobilisation – from chelation strategies and glutathione support to the biochemistry of phase I/II hepatic conjugation. This keynote bridges exposome science and clinical protocol: which compartments respond to which mobilisation approach, how to sequence preparation and clearance for maximum therapeutic yield, and how practitioners in this network can optimise their upstream protocols to get the most out of every Inuspheresis® session.  

Some patients are never quite the same after COVID-19: an exposure that, between infection and vaccination, reached almost everyone. This keynote presents a five-year longitudinal study of an unselected cohort followed after exposure to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination: free light chains rising progressively from a verified normal baseline; monoclonal and polyclonal gammopathy appearing where there had been none, after a latency of three to four years; and total and anti-spike antibody titers that stay elevated, often above the laboratory reference range. New monoclonal gammopathy occurred at 8.5 times the expected incidence, and light-chain abnormalities at three to eight times, across every biomarker examined – all of them well understood, widely available, and inexpensive. 

Time for networking and exchange with our speakers.

Three clinics, three distinct patient populations, one shared protocol. Julia Wilke, Christian Burghardt and Uta Langer bring their real-world experience with Inuspheresis® to the stage – how they have integrated the therapy into their clinical workflows, which protocol adaptations have made the biggest difference, and what results they are seeing across different patient profiles. This is the session built for the room: network members sharing with network members what works, why, and what they have learned along the way. 

The exponential growth of scientific publications forces researchers into an impossible choice: disciplinary depth or interdisciplinary breadth. Yet breakthroughs tend to emerge exactly at the intersections, for instance between microbiology and genetics, where the cognitive effort of synthesis becomes the bottleneck for research and development. This session introduces the Google AI Co-Scientist, a Gemini-based multi-agent system that shifts the paradigm from passive literature search to active research collaboration. Specialised agents generate, test, rank and refine hypotheses, mirroring the scientific method itself and surfacing connections no single researcher would find. The goal is not to replace researchers but to relieve them: months of literature work and hypothesis building compress into hours.