2016 will mark 50 years of the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Immunochemistry and Immunobiology, a series of meetings held every other year since 1966. While celebrating this important anniversary, which coincides with a remarkable emergence of new classes of immuno-therapeutics in inflammation, allergy, and cancer, along with new successes in vaccine research, the 2016 GRC Program will provide novel insights that will continue to spark innovative basic research and drug development efforts. The Conference will bring together 37 invited speakers and 165 participants over four and a half days to discuss recent advances across the breadth of immunology, with a focus on nine themes of significant biological and clinical relevance. The immune system will be discussed as a global regulator of host physiology, including host defense, tissue repair and metabolism. Disease states, including autoimmunity, infection, and cancer, will be discussed in the context of gene regulation, cell development, and microenvironment, approached through diverse and novel methodologies. A particular emphasis will be given to human immunology and novel translational potentials in immunology. The GRC will be preceded by the second Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) in Immunochemistry and Immunobiology, a one and a half day meeting that aims to prepare young researchers for participation in the GRC. Following tradition, all lecturers will focus on unpublished data, and the conference will foster scientific interactions to accelerate both basic advances and translational applications.