? A conference is proposed to provide a cross-disciplinary forum for exchange of scientific data, ideas and future plans for investigators developing and using aquatic animal models for study of human disease. The proposed program includes scientific presentations in several key fields, technical workshops and resource workshops to be held at the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in Manassas, Virginia. The participants in the meeting will represent a wide range of scientific disciplines including genetics/genomics, carcinogenesis, transgenesis, toxicology, infectious diseases, aging and neurological disorders. These scientists typically attend research conferences, which focus exclusively on the specific themes related to their own research disciplines. Thus, one of the primary goals of the scientific presentations will be to communicate recent discoveries from diverse fields that participants would not encounter in the specialized conferences that they would typically attend. Technical workshops will provide an introduction and organized discussion of technologies currently under development in aquatic animal models. Resource workshops will focus on several themes central to the development and support of resources critical to the advancement of these animal model systems. ? ? The overarching theme of this meeting will be the development of the unique attributes of aquatic animal model systems as important resources for the study of pathological, genetic and physiological processes directly applicable to understanding human disease processes. The investigators strongly believe the forum provided by this type of interdisciplinary meeting is unique and is critical to the advancement of these diverse model systems as useful resources for the biomedical research community. ? ?
