Arti?cial immune systems (AIS) is a diverse and maturing area of research that bridges the disciplines of immunology and engineering. The scope of AIS ranges fromimmune-inspiredalgorithmsandengineeringsolutionsinsoftwareandha- ware, to the understanding of immunology through modeling and simulation of immune system concepts. AIS algorithms have been applied to a wide variety of applications, including computer security, fault tolerance, data mining and optimization. In addition, theoretical aspects of arti?cial and real immune s- tems have been the subject of mathematical and computational models and simulations. The 8th InternationalConference on AIS (ICARIS 2009)built on the success of previous years, providing a forum for a diverse group of AIS researchers to present and discuss their latest results and advances. After two years outside Europe, ICARIS 2009 returned to England, the venue for the ?rst ICARIS back in 2002. This year's conference was located in the historic city of York, and was held in St. William's College, the conference venue of York Minster, northern Europe's largest Gothic cathedral.