CELL BIOLOGY OF VIRUS ENTRY, REPLICATION AND PATHOGENESI

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

The elucidating of the molecular interactions between viral components and the cell provides the most exciting aspects of modern virology. Work in this area has, on the one hand, revealed underlying similarities between virus families, and, on the other, provided a starting point for understanding the diversity in mechanisms of pathogenesis and tissue tropism. The main questions addressed at this Keystone Symposia concern the cell biological aspects of virus entry, uncoating, protein traffic, assembly, budding and release. The defensive mechanisms that cells and organisms use to combat viruses (and the strategies used by viruses to escape them) and the interactions that determine cell and species tropism as well as pathogenesis of viral diseases are also addressed. While the above topics will be discussed in detail, each of our sessions cover a topic rather than a virus family. Thus there will be sessions on receptors, protein traffic, pathogenesis, etc. Our motive has been to generate discussion over virus family-boundaries. Unfortunately, such boundaries still prevail, and limit progress in virology. In addition to lectures there are poster sessions coordinated with four workshops. The goal is to provide a forum in which the participants can present and discuss their work in an informal setting. Such discussion sessions allow exchange between virologists from different virus "camps" and between virologists, immunologists, and cell biologists, between established and beginning investigators and with students, both graduate and postdoctoral.