Based on the importance of the Epstein-Barr Virus as an established disease-causing agent world-wide, the new diseases now being associated with this virus, the growing number of investigators in the field, the international features of EBV-associated diseases, and the impact of EBV infection in AIDS, we plan to hold the fifth International Symposium on Epstein-Barr Virus and Associated Malignant Diseases in Annecy, France, September 13-19, 1992. These biennial symposia, sponsored by the International Association for Research On Epstein-Barr Virus and Associated Diseases, provide the only regular forum for EBV research.
The aims are: 1. Define more precisely EBV-associated diseases, old and newly emerging, in pathobiologic and molecular terms from basic and clinical perspectives. 2. Provide an interdisciplinary forum to consider the explosion of information on regulation of EBV gene expression both at the transcriptional and protein levels, replication, and recombination. 3. Consider newly emerging mechanisms of oncogenesis triggered by EBV infection including interactions with oncogenes and growth-suppressor genes. 4. Consider the new evidence for an association of EBV and Hodgkin's Disease as well as the EBV-triggered lymphomas in AIDS and in post- transplant recipients. 5. Examine the latest pathogenetic and molecular features together with the epidemiology of the most important EBV-associated disease, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). 6. Invite new approaches to treatment, early diagnosis and prevention of EBV infection and diseases. 7. Recognize and encourage new young investigators and new developments in the field and identify areas for future investigation. 8. Stimulate active communication and interactions internationally among clinical and basic scientists in order to facilitate exchange of information and materials and rapid movement of new basic information to clinical settings. Four hundred participants including basic scientists, epidemiologists, geneticists and clinicians from North America, Europe, Asia and Africa are expected. This is an open meeting that will accept after screening unsolicited abstracts as well as the invited overview talks and solicited submissions. Essentially every established EBV investigator and a large number of younger investigators are included on the program which has been designed to take note of new developments and to retain its interdisciplinary character. This application requests partial support for two-thirds of the invited EBV experts from the USA.
