This R13 grant application requests funds to partially cover the cost of planning, organizing, publicizing and hosting the 27th Annual Symposium on Nonhuman Primate Models for AIDS. The symposium will be held October 21-24, 2009, at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting will be hosted by the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC), Harvard Medical School. 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 that approximately 300 scientists from around the world will attend. The symposium will encompass five half-day scientific sessions, two workshops and an evening poster session. The scientific sessions will be: (1) Virology;(2) Immunology;(3) Pathogenesis;(4) Vaccines/Prevention;and (5) Genetics/Genomics. The two workshops will be on (1) primate pathology;and (2) bioinformatics and 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 host institution. The session chair and co-chair will also moderate the session and manage speaker questions. The conference will also include a welcome reception on the day of arrival, an evening banquet, and invited speakers to give an opening address on the evening of the welcome reception, a keynote address at the start of the scientific sessions, and a banquet speaker. Invited speakers will address scientific and public health related issues related to the global AIDS crisis. A Scientific Program Committee, consisting of eleven members drawn from the NEPRC 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. Posters will be available for viewing throughout the duration of the meeting. All accepted abstracts will be posted online on the meeting website to ensure open access to meeting participants and non-participants engaged in nonhuman primate research. 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 National Center for Research Resources support for the previous symposia.
The principal objective of this symposium is to serve as a scientific forum for the dissemination and exchange of new research findings, ideas and directions by an international group of scientists whose research focuses on the study of experimental immunodeficiency virus infections, i.e., human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), and recombinant simian/human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) in nonhuman primate models. The ultimate goal is to utilize the knowledge gained from these crucial nonhuman primate studies to better understand how HIV and SIV cause disease, facilitating the development of new methods for the treatment, control and prevention of AIDS in human populations.
