The International Feline Retrovirus Research Symposium (IFRRS) is a bi-annual symposium that has been held in Europe and the USA for the last 10 years under the current name. This conference grant application requests funds to partially support the cost of planning, organizing, publicizing, and hosting the 6th International Feline Retrovirus Research Symposium. The symposium will be held at the Ritz-Carlton Resort in Amelia Island, Florida on December 2-5,2002 and will be centrally hosted by the University of Florida in partnership with North Carolina State University and NIH. Additional costs for running this symposium will be covered by registration fees paid by conferees and by contributions made by commercial (pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies), academic, and private institutions. The main objective of this symposium is to serve as a scientific forum to disseminate and exchange new research findings, ideas, and directions by an international scientific community whose research focuses are on the study of experimental feline retrovirus infection as models for human AIDS and leukemia. The central theme of this year's symposium will be to promote the advancement of experimental retrovirus infection of cats as small animal models for human AIDS and leukemia and the title will be """"""""Future Directions for FIV/FeLV/Cat Models of AIDS and Cancer"""""""". To this end, the scientific program of this symposium will differ greatly from previous years that focused on speakers with excellence in FlV and FeLV research alone. The keynote speakers of 6th IFRRS have been selected for excellence in their respective fields in HIV/SIV and HTLV research in order to facilitate the interchange of ideas and information from outside the feline research community. By exposure to state-of-the-art speakers in HIV, SlV, and HTLV, we hope to update and identify new directions in FIV and FeLV research.
