HIV Cure Working Group Calls for Abstracts for July Symposium

A working group under the auspices of the International AIDS Society (IAS) is developing a global scientific strategy "Towards an HIV Cure" that will be presented at a 2-day symposium in July preceding the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC.

Meeting organizers are calling for submission of abstracts related to HIV cure research to be presented at the symposium as well as the larger conference.

Below is an edited excerpt from a recent Call for Abstracts that includes information about how to submit abstracts online. Registration for the symposium is now open at http://hivcure.aids2012.org.

Call for Abstracts: Towards an HIV Cure Symposium July 2012

Under the auspices of the International AIDS Society, an international working group of researchers is developing a Global Scientific Strategy Towards an HIV Cure. The strategy aims at building a global consensus defining scientific priorities for HIV cure research.

The scientific strategy will be released at a 2-day symposium with up to 250 leaders from academia, industry, government, and community-based groups, which will be held in Washington, DC on July 20 and 21, immediately preceding the XIX International AIDS Conference. The symposium will be co-chaired by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, 2008 Nobel Laureate for Medicine and IAS President-elect and Steven Deeks, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). This symposium will be closely linked to the AIDS 2012 conference program.

Track A and B (basic and clinical sciences) abstracts submitted to the International AIDS Conference and related to the topic of HIV cure can be considered for the symposium (oral presentations and posters), while a summary of the results from the symposium will be shared with the expected 25 to 30 thousand participants attending AIDS 2012. We encourage abstracts to be submitted in the track categories outlined below, from the basic science section:

• A27: Viral Mechanisms of Persistence and Latency
• A28: Mechanisms of Eradication
• A29: Tissue Reservoirs
• A30: Host Cellular Factors and Latency

Abstract submission opens on 1 December 2011 and will close at midnight CET on 15 February 2012.Please submit abstracts online at: http://www.aids2012.org. Late breakers will also be considered (submission between 19 April and 22 May on www.aids2012.org).

Selected abstract presenters will be awarded scholarships for both the workshop and AIDS 2012. Applications for these awards can be made online at http://www.aids2012.org from 8 December 2011 through 15 February 2012. The best abstract presented by a young investigator will receive the IAS-ANRS Prize on HIV Cure, to be awarded at the symposium.

There will be seven sessions held at the symposium; the preliminary titles for each session are as follows:

• Cellular and viral mechanisms that maintain HIV persistence.
• Tissue and cellular sources of persistent HIV in long-term ART-treated individuals.
• Origins of immune activation and inflammation in the presence of ART and their consequences for HIV persistence.
• Host and immune mechanisms that control infection but allow viral persistence.
• Assays to measure persistent infection: Comparison and validation.
• Therapeutic agents or immunological strategies to safely eliminate latent infection in individuals on ART.
• Strategies to enhance the capacity of the host response to control active viral replication.

Please click here for more detailed information on the background and objectives of this initiative and for any additional information please contact JLIB_HTML_CLOAKING . We would welcome that you circulate this message as widely as possible in your networks.

The Symposium Programme Committee:

Alain Lafeuillade, France

David Margolis, USA

Melissa Churchill, Australia

Alan Landay, USA

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, France

Paula Munderi, Uganda

Sharon Lewin, Australia

Ann Woolfrey, USA

Jim Mullins, USA

Rowena Johnston, USA

Steven Deeks, USA

Carine van Lint, Belgium

Mark Harrington, USA

Sarah Palmer, Sweden

1/17/12

Source

IAS "Towards an HIV Cure" Team. Call for Abstracts: Towards an HIV Cure Symposium July 2012. Email announcement. January 17, 2012.