The Viruses and Cells Gordon Research Conference (GRC) is the premier meeting in the field of virology. This conference covers a wide range of topics including virus entry and replication, innate immune responses to viral infection, virus-host interactions, manipulation and exploitation of cellular pathways, viral evasion of host immunity, mechanisms of viral pathogenesis and the development of therapeutics to treat viral diseases. The 2017 Viruses & Cells Gordon Research Conference will be held at Renaissance Tuscany, Il Ciocco, Lucca (Barga), Italy, from May 14-19, 2017. The conference is small in size (<200 participants), which makes it the perfect size for productive interactions and networking. Blossom Damania (University of North Carolina, School of Medicine) will serve as chair and Julie Pfeiffer (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center) will serve as vice-chair. This leadership team was elected by the virology community and is an example of the emphasis that the Viruses & Cells GRC places on scientific breadth, since the two leaders have research programs that encompass very different aspects of both DNA and RNA virology. For the first time in its history, the 2017 Viruses & Cells GRC will be associated with a Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), which will be held the two days prior to the GRC, May 13-14, 2017. The chair of the GRS is Dr. Sayantan Bose from Harvard Medical School and the co-chair is Dr. Victoria Meliopoulos from St. Jude Children?s Research Hospital. The 2017 Viruses and Cells GRC program will be comprised of established scientists who are at the leading edge of the field, as well as junior investigators who are in the midst of launching their independent research careers. The program will bring together both graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at the GRC meeting itself, as well as through the associated GRS. Invited speakers will present cutting-edge findings about different aspects of virus biology and virus-host interactions. Session chairs and discussion leaders are chosen for their expertise in the topics covered in each session and will direct open discussions and a lively question session following each presentation. In addition to the invited speakers, shorter talks will be chosen from the abstracts submitted for the poster sessions. Presentations will be selected to display exciting new developments in virus research, with an emphasis on highlighting junior scientists, including postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and new investigators. The poster sessions will be held in the evenings and are an important and vital part of the program. Meeting participants will include a wide range of expertise - established investigators who have made seminal contributions to the field, junior investigators who recently started their independent research careers, as well as graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Viruses are a major public health burden worldwide and cause many infectious diseases in humans, animals, and plants. Gaining a deeper knowledge of the biology and lifecycle of viruses is paramount to understanding their mode of pathogenesis and is essential to the development of effective vaccines and therapeutics. The 2017 Viruses and Cells Gordon Research Conference and its associated Gordon Research Seminar will provide an interactive scientific forum in which junior and senior scientists with diverse expertise can exchange novel and important insights into the biology of diverse viruses.
