The American Society for Virology (ASV) wishes to provide, through this five-year block grant, partial support for the travel of 45 pre-doctoral students, 25 post-doctoral fellows, and 4 U.S. undergraduate teachers of virology to participate in the annual scientific meetings of the ASV; awards for pre- and post-doctoral applicants will be $400, and for teachers $500, for a total of $30,000 per year. Pre-doctoral and post- doctoral applicants will be evaluated by the ASV Graduate Student/Postdoctoral Travel Award Committee, and undergraduate teachers by the ASV Education and Career Development Committee, with announce- ment of such awards to minority colleges. Student/fellow awardees must submit an abstract for presentation of papers in workshops or poster sessions, and teachers must write an essay explaining the benefit of ASV meeting attendance to their teaching and counseling. The ASV meeting provides an opportunity for U.S. junior scientists to meet and interact directly with recognized expert virologists as well as learn in symposia, workshops, poster sessions, and special conferences the most recent developments in virus research areas, including the viruses of humans, animals, plants, invertebrates, and prokaryotes. Symposia, state-of-the-art lectures, and workshops address all virus families and cover viral emergence, evolution, immunobiology, molecular biology, disease control, clinical virology, as well as virus genetics, structure, replication, and pathogenesis, including HIV, hepatitis, influenza, and coronaviruses. The ASV considers one excellent way to stimulate and aid junior researchers and teachers in their future work is to enable them to interact directly with experts in virology, from which unique, long-lasting collaborations and exchanges can result. Post- meeting evaluation will be undertaken by analysis of questionnaires from awardees.
Our aim i s to provide partial funding for junior virologists, including women and minority scientists, who might otherwise be unable to attend the ASV meeting, with the goal of benefiting virological research in the U.S.A. for years to come. The virological research presented and discussed at ASV meetings has many applications in the fields of infectious, immunologic, neoplastic, hematologic, pulmonary, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurologic, ophthalmologic, developmental and childhood diseases, and in chronic and degenerative diseases, as well as in basic genetics, genomics, proteomics, gene therapy, and biotechnology.
