A series of workshops on viral pathogenesis and oncogenesis will be organized. Viral infectious diseases continue to be major human health threats in both the developed and developing worlds. They can cause acute infections (both new [e.g. hantavirus] and established [e.g. influenza]) and also chronic diseases- notably cancers (e.g. cervical cancer, lymphomas and hepatocellular carcinoma) and neurodegenerative diseases. An important foundation for development of viral vaccines and anti-virals is establish the knowledge base for how a particular virus causes disease. Ultimately, experimentation in whole infected organisms must be carried out, and this often necessitates developing animal models. These workshops will temporally coincide with meetings of the NIH Virology and Experimental Virology study sections. The workshops will be 1 + days in length, featuring 12 plenary speakers. Approximately six speakers will be drawn from study section membership, and the other six will be invited on the basis of their recent groundbreaking discoveries. The workshops will be advertised through journals (e.g. ASM News, the Journal of Virology) as well as through relevant websites (NIH and otherwise). Attendance will be open to all interested investigators, and we anticipate an attendance of 75-150.
