32nd Annual Symposium on NHP Models for AIDS

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This conference grant (R13) application request funds to partially cover the cost of planning, organizing, publicizing and hosting the 32nd Annual Symposium on Nonhuman Primate Models for AIDS. The Symposium will be hosted by the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), and will be held November 11-14, 2014, at The Nines in Portland, OR. This meeting has become the premier forum for the presentation and exchange of the most recent advances in AIDS research utilizing animal models. It is anticipated that approximately 250 scientists from around the world will attend this meeting. The latest findings in primate pathogenesis, immunology, virology, vaccines, therapeutics, genomics, and curative approaches will be presented. Four consecutive half-day and two quarter-day scientific sessions will be held, each devoted to a different discipline. Each session will have an invited Chair, who will give a 30- minute presentation to open the first half of the session, and a co-Chair, who will moderate the session and entertain questions. A Scientific Program Committee consisting of sixteen members representing a broad spectrum of institutions will review abstracts and assign oral or poster presentation for each of the scientific sessions. Criteria for selection will include relevance of he topic to the theme of the meeting and the originality and quality of the information contained in the abstract. Those individuals giving formal presentations will be asked to submit their presentations in manuscript form for publication in the Journal of Medical Primatology. In addition, there will also be poster sessions for those meritorious presentations that cannot be accommodated in one of the five platform sessions. The conference will include an opening day welcome reception, a second day poster session reception and a banquet on the third day of the symposium. To further the educational mission of the meeting, an Outreach Session, primarily aimed at high school science teachers and general community members, will be held. This event will be hosted with the assistance of the Cascade AIDS Project, and the OHSU Office of Science Education Opportunities, which is dedicated to promoting public understanding of the implications and applications of the process of biomedical research. We are confident that the knowledge gained from this meeting will shed light on how HIV and SIV cause disease and how to develop vaccines to prevent infection and therapies to control and eventually cure HIV infection.