Travel awards and scholarships are available for the Emerging Virus Infections Conference in Hong Kong, October 14-18, 2018. You can apply by June 27, 2018.
Due to their sporadic or surprise occurrence, most aspects of the biology and infectious potential of emerging and re-emerging viruses are poorly understood. Nevertheless, they have have the potential to cause high morbidity and mortality. Our continuing struggle to respond to a procession of pandemics, including SARS, avian influenza, MERS, Ebola and more recently Zika, highlights key gaps in our knowledge and should serve to motivate our re-thinking on how we can better prepare for and deal with future unknown viral threats. In summary, this four-day conference will:
- Identify the gaps in knowledge and critical barriers to progress in the field by developing an understanding of how viruses – including Zika, Ebola, MERS annd influenza – can transmit between a reservoir and neew host species, and identifying those aspects of the disease process that offer opportunities for therapy and prevention;
- Explore why zoonotic diseases matter, their association with agriculture, the importance of surveillance and early detection, and the difficulties of dealing with diseases that involve both medical and veterinary communities;
- Bring together virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists, those working on anti-viral strategies and others in related biomedical fields who do not usually attend the same meetings.
Travel awards, generously funded by the Croucher Foundation and The University of Hong Kong, are available to students, postdoctoral fellows and scientists from East and Southeast Asia who would like to attend this conference, while scholarships are available to students and postdoctoral fellows from any nation. [More info] The conference will feature the following confirmed invited speakers: Ralph S. Baric, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Mario Barro, Sanofi Pasteur, USA Andrew G. Bean, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, USA Michael S. Diamond, Washington University School of Medicine, USA Anna-Bella Failloux, Institute Pasteur, Paris, France Heinz Feldmann, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, USA Yi Guan, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Bart L. Haagmans, Erasmus MC, Netherlands Scott B. Halstead, Dengue Vaccine Initiative, South Korea Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, World Health Organization, Switzerland Nicholas Jackson, Sanofi Pasteur, France Marion P.G. Koopmans, Erasmus MC, Netherlands John W. Lowenthal, Australia Suresh Mahalingam, Griffith University, Australia Malik Peiris, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Leo Poon, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Raman Rao, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, USA Ted M. Ross, University of Georgia, USA Erica Ollmann Saphire, The Scripps Research Institute, USA Gavin J.D. Smith, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore Ralph A. Tripp, University of Georgia, USA Linfa Wang, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Scott C. Weaver, University of Texas Medical Branch, USA Stephen Whitehead, NIAID, National Institutes of Health, USA KY Yuen, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Jincun Zhao, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Disease, China
Comments