Initiated by Dr. Judy Cho’s efforts to collaborate with her peers in Oxford, UK, the first annual meeting among the faculty of Mount Sinai and those of Oxford University occurred on Feb 23rd-24th of 2015. The Mount Sinai attendees included those of a few departments who collaborate among each other in biomedical research. A wide array of research topics such as IBD clinical and translational research, human immune monitoring and new technology, immuno-oncology, and microbiome and genetics were discussed at the symposium. Dr. Cho presented on the “Common and rare variation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD),” and the meeting concluded with a planning discussion of the next steps for the research topics discussed.