? This conference grant (R13) application requests funds to partially cover the cost of planning, organizing, publicizing and hosting the 24th Annual Symposium on Nonhuman Primate Models for AIDS. The symposium will be held October 4-7, 2006, at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and will be hosted by the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University. This meeting is the premier forum for the presentation and exchange of the most recent scientific advances in AIDS research utilizing the nonhuman primate model. The latest findings in primate pathogenesis, immunology, genomics, virology, vaccines and therapeutics will be presented. It is anticipated more than 300 scientists from the United States and other countries will attend. The symposium will encompass five half-day scientific sessions and an evening poster session. The scientific sessions will be: Virology, Pathogenesis, Immunology, Vaccines and Therapeutics/Genomics. Each session will have an invited Chair, a scientific leader in the field, who will give a 30-minute state-of-the-field presentation to open the session, and a Co-Chair from the Scientific Committee, who will moderate the session and entertain questions. In addition, there will be an invited keynote speaker and a banquet speaker, who will address scientific approaches and concerns regarding the global AIDS crisis and related issues of public health. A Scientific Program Committee consisting of eight-ten members drawn from the Yerkes/Emory community and other institutions will review abstracts and assign oral or poster presentations for each of the scientific sessions. Committee members will include leaders in the field from a variety of scientific disciplines. 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 talks will be invited to submit their presentations in manuscript form for publication in the Journal of Medical Primatology. A poster session will include meritorious presentations that cannot be accommodated in one of the platform sessions. A local Organizing Committee will handle arrangements and logistics for the symposium. Feedback from the participants will be obtained through written questionnaires or oral comments to members of the organizing committee. This format has been successfully followed using NCRR support for the previous Annual symposium. ? ? ?
