? Funds are requested to partially cover the cost of planning, organizing, publicizing, and hosting the 21st Annual Symposium on NHP Models for AIDS to be held October 23-25, 2003 at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in downtown Seattle, WA. This meeting has been a premier forum for presentation and exchange of the most recent scientific advances in AIDS research utilizing the NHP model. It is anticipated that more than 300 scientists from the United States and other countries will attend. The symposium will consist of five half-day scientific sessions and a poster session. The sessions will cover topics in virology, vaccines/immunology pathogenesis/therapeutics, and NHP genetics and genomics. Each session will have one or more invited speakers, who will each give a 25-minute state-of-the-art presentation. Select sessions will also include a round table discussion to promote exchanges. Invited speakers, as Chairs or co-chairs of the session, will be asked to moderate the sessions and guide the discussions. A Keynote Speaker and a Banquet Speaker will be invited to address the broader issues of scientific interest and public health concerns. The scientific program will be organized by the Scientific Program Committee, consisting of six local and six non-local members, all leaders in their fields of expertise, representing a broad geographic and institutional distribution. Committee members will review abstracts and select those for oral and poster presentations. Criteria for selection of oral presentations will include relevance of the topic, as well as originality and quality of the information contained in the abstract. Those giving oral presentations will be invited to submit a manuscript to be published in the Journal of Medical Primatology. A poster session will include meritorious presentations that cannot be accommodated in one of the platform sessions. The conference will also include an opening reception on the day of arrival; a reception with the poster session on the second evening; and a reception and banquet on the last evening of the symposium. To take advantage of the expertise assembled and to further the educational mission of this Symposium, the planners also propose to hold a tutorial session, primarily aimed at high school science teachers and junior researchers (graduate students). This session will consist of overviews on HIV/AIDS and related NHP research presented by invited speakers, followed by discussions. Although participants of this tutorial session will not attend other sessions of the Symposium, they will have an opportunity to learn the latest in AIDS research in NHPs and to meet with researchers in the field at the opening reception of the Symposium. ? ?
