This conference grant (R13) application requests funds to partially cover the cost of planning, organizing, publicizing and hosting the 17th Annual Symposium on Non-human Primate Models for AIDS. The symposium will be held October 6-9, 1999 at the DoubleTree Hotel and Conference Center in New Orleans, Louisiana and will be hosted by the Tulane Regional Primate Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. This meeting has become the premier forum for the presentation and exchange of the most recent scientific advances in AIDS research utilizing the non-human primate model. The latest findings in pathogenesis, primate immunology, vaccines and therapeutics will be presented. It is anticipated that more than 300 scientists from the United States, abroad and Puerto Rico will attend. The symposium will encompass five consecutive half-day scientific sessions, each devoted to a different theme. These will be: (1) AIDS-associated Infections, (2) Primate Vaccine/Therapeutics. Each session will have an invited Chair, who will give a 30-minute state-of-the-art presentation to open the session and a Co-Chair, who will moderate the session and entertain questions. In addition, there will be an invited keynote speaker and banquet speaker to address scientific approaches and concerns regarding the global AIDS crisis and related issues of public health. A Scientific Program Committee consisting of element members (six members from TRPRC/Tulane and five from other institutions) will review abstracts and select those for oral versus Poster presentation for each of the five 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. These 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 accommodate in one of the five platform sessions. The conference will also include an opening reception on speaker (NOTE: funds for the reception and banquet will be obtained from other sources).
