Funds are requested for travel, per-diem expenses and registration fees for invited speakers at a II. International Symposium on Genetic Control of Host Resistance to Infection and Malignancy to be held under the auspices of the Reticuloendothelial Society in Montreal, Canada on May 13-17, 1985 and for other expenses related to this meeting.
The aim of the Symposium is to bring together scientists from several disciplines, namely population genetics, immunology, bacteriology, virology, parasitology, oncology, molecular biology and statistics and to exchange information on the common strategies of genetic analysis, in the broad spectrum of genetically-determined traits of host resistance. The use of genetics as the aim of the analysis as well as the tool to invesigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of resistance/susceptibility to infections and tumors will be discussed. Methods of typing for genetically susceptible and resistant individuals in populations and the possibilities of remedial measures for genetically-determined defects in the host resistance will be analyzed. The influence of genetic resistance/susceptibility on the response to vaccination, immunotherapy and chemotherapy and on the development of the states of inflammation, autoimmunity and immunodeficiency will be considered. A further goal of the symposium will be to give younger scientists (graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) the opportunity to interact with established researchers in the context of a major international meeting. The need for the Symposium stems from the tremendous expansion of research and knowledge in this field in the last several years and from the realistic expectation of the feasibility, in the near future, to clone and to transfer certain host resistance genes as the means of correcting the innate susceptibility. Symposium attendance is expected to be 300 participants selected on the basis of their interest in the field and of submitted abstracts.
