From emerging to pandemic viruses: interplay between host ecology and viral evolution

Roscoff (Brittany), France, April 2-6, 2014

 

Deadline for application: February 25, 2014

 

Chairperson: Roland R. REGOES

ETH Zentrum, CHN H76.2, Universitaetsstr. 16, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 632 6935 - Fax +41 44 632 1271
Email: roland.regoes@env.ethz.ch

 

Vice-chairperson: Samuel ALIZON

Laboratoire MIVEGEC, CNRS UMR 5290, IRD, 911 Avenue Agropolis, BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
Phone: +33 (0) 4 67 41 64 36 – Fax: +33 (0) 4 67 41 63 30
Email: samuel.alizon@cnrs.fr

 

Emerging viruses are recognized to be a threat not only to human health but also to activities, such as crop or cattle farming, and even to endangered species. This conference will study virus evolution and emergence through an original perspective by focusing on where viruses thrive. A first series of lectures will present virus outbreaks in the wild, ranging from “classical” topics (ebola in humans) to more unusual viruses (viruses infecting Archae or viruses infecting... viruses). A second series of lectures will present experimental results on outbreaks, with a particular focus on bacteriophages, which are particularly amenable to experimental evolution approaches. Finally, the third series of lectures will focus on deciphering the dynamical processes that can lead to outbreaks of new viruses. Overall, this conference stands out as one of the few that gathers researchers, who use different approaches (molecular biology, experimental evolution, mathematical modeling) and work on viruses infecting a wide variety of hosts (animals, plants, bacteria, Archae, viruses) but who are all interested in virus emergence.

 

Invited speakers
(provisional titles)

 

ALIZON Samuel (Montpellier, France) - Vice-chairperson
How susceptible host depletion impedes evolutionary emergence

ARTS Eric (Cleveland, USA)
HIV-1 adaptation to the human host: Defining transmission and pathogenic fitness

ASQUITH Becca (London, UK)
The CD8+ T cell response to persistent viruses in humans

BENKIRANE Monsef (Montpellier, France)
HIV-1 persistence: Current knowledge and future challenge

BLANC Stéphane (Montpellier, France)
Gene copy number variations during the life cycle of a multipartite virus

BONHOEFFER Sebastian (Zürich, Switzerland)
Evolution of drug resistance in viruses

CHARBONNEL Nathalie (Montpellier, France)
Comparative genomics of bank vole tolerance to Puumala hantavirus over Europe and consequences or Puumala evolution

CLAVERIE Jean-Michel (Marseille, France)
Megaviruses and Pandoraviruses: Where do they come from?

COBEY Sarah (Chicago, USA)
Pre-existing immunity to emerging viruses

CUNNINGHAM Andrew A. (London, UK)
Virus infection dynamics in African fruit bats

DE LAMBALLERIE Xavier (Marseille, France)
Genome content and silent mutations: the hidden side of interplay between host ecology and viral evolution

ELENA Santiago (València, Spain)
An experimental evolution approach to the emergence of plant RNA viruses

FRASER Christophe (London, UK)
Evolution of HIV viral load and implications for pathogenesis

GANDON Sylvain (Montpellier, France)
Evolution of pathogen plasticity

GAUDIN Yves (Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Viral fusion machineries

GESSAIN Antoine (Paris, France)
Emergence of Novel Retroviruses in Humans in Central Africa: Importance of Interspecies Transmission

HAMPSON Katie (Glasgow, UK)
Tracing transmission pathways and the dynamics of rabies in natural populations

JIGGINS Franck (Cambridge, UK)
Phylogenetic constraints on virus host shifts

KOSKELLA Britt (Exeter, UK)
Exploring bacteria-phage interactions within a long-lived host over space and time

LEVIN Bruce (Atlanta, USA)
Host immunity and the population and evolutionary dynamics of bacteriophage:  CRISPR is not just a tool of capitalist molecular biologists

LLOYD-SMITH James (Los Angeles, USA)
Monkeypox emergence in the aftermath of smallpox eradication: ecological opportunity and evolutionary potential

MARTIN Darren (Cape Town, South Africa)
The emergence of maize streak virus

PRANGISHVILI David (Paris, France)
Virus-host interactions in extreme geothermal environments

PYBUS Oliver (Oxford, UK)
Unifying the spatial and evolutionary epidemiology of emerging viral epidemics

REGOES Roland (Zürich, Switzerland) – Chairperson
Is there tolerance against HIV in the human population?

TURNER Paul (New Haven, USA)
Generalized adaptation to host innate immunity broadens RNA virus tropism

VAN BOVEN Michiel (Bilthoven, Netherlands)
Immunological dynamics driving the long-term evolution of influenza A

VIGNUZZI Marco (Paris, France)
Arbovirus experimental evolution in vivo: monitoring short-term evolution and identifying emergence events by deep sequencing virus population during transmission

WEAVER Scott (Galveston, USA)
Chikungunya virus emergence: the perfect storm of vector invasion and viral adaptation

WIMMER Eckard (Stony Brook, USA)
Codon pair bias, fitness, and pathogenesis of different viruses

 

Deadline for application: February 25, 2014

 

Registration fee (including board and lodging)

420 € for PhD students
600 € for other participants

 

Application for registration
The total number of participants is limited to 115 and all participants are expected to attend for the whole duration of the conference. Selection is made on the basis of the affinity of potential participants with the topics of the conference. Scientists and PhD Students interested in the meeting should send:

- their curriculum vitae
- the list of their main publications for the 3 last years
- the abstract of their presentation

to the Chairperson of the conference (roland.regoes@env.ethz.ch) before the deadline. After it, the organizers will select the participants. Except in some particular cases approved by the Chairperson, it is recommended that all selected participants present their work during the conference, either in poster form or by a brief in- session talk. The organizers choose the form in which the presentations are made. No payment will be sent with application. Information on how and when to pay will be mailed in due time to those selected.

Support grants from 250 to 600 € are available to young scientists (less than 36) who are members of a Federation of European Microbiological Societies Member Society. In addition to the regular registration, the attached file should be sent before Dec 10 to the vice-chairperson (samuel.alizon@montp.cnrs.fr).

More information on the website of the conference.