HIV Vaccines: Current Challenges and Future Prospects joint with HIV Pathogenesis Organizer(s): David C. Montefiori, Kent J. Weinhold and Carolyn Williamson Date: April 09 - 15, 2005 Location: Fairmont Banff Springs, Banff, AB, CanadaThe need to develop a vaccine for AIDS has never been so urgent. The number of people infected with HIV has grown to over 40 million and continues to increase at an alarming rate in many developing countries. The disappointing results of AIDSVAX, the first candidate HIV vaccine to be tested in phase III efficacy trials, underscore the need for heightened efforts. A variety of candidate HIV vaccines are tested in animal models and phase I/II clinical trials every year, yielding new information on safety, immunogenicity and potential efficacy. Moreover, considerable efforts are underway to gain a better understanding of the genetic diversity and antigenic structure of the virus, the immune responses that contain HIV infection, and the complex mechanisms used by the virus to evade those immune responses. Investigators hope to use this collective information to engineer improved immunogens. This Keystone Symposium aims to address the scientific obstacles to vaccine development, to identify promising leads that may help overcome those obstacles, to foster open scientific discussions of the most recent unpublished results from pre-clinical and clinical trials and to forge new collaborations that will accelerate the development of a safe and effective HIV vaccine. Discounted Abstract Deadline: December 9 2004 Discounted Registration Deadline: February 10 2005 We gratefully acknowledge additional in-kind support for this conference from those foregoing speaker expense reimbursements:
Merck Research Laboratories
Wyeth Research Labs
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