EUROPIC america 2002: a conference for picornaviruses

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EUROPIC meetings are dedicated to review, every two years, progress and future directions of research related to Picornaviridae, one of the largest families of human and animal pathogenic viruses. So far, eleven previous meetings have been organized by the European Study Group on Molecular Biology of Picornaviruses, and they have all been held in (nine) European countries. Although this international meeting derived its name from the venue and the continent of origin of the majority of the attendees, the meeting has included Americans from the start and Americans now make up a sizeable fraction of attendees (>21% of the participants at EUROPIC 2000 in Italy. For this reason, the Americans were "nominated" during the last EUROPIC for the first time to organize EUROPIC/america 2002 in the US. A group of five active American picornavirologists volunteered to organize the first American picornaviruses meeting, to be held on Cape Cod at the SeaCrest Resort and Conference Center in Falmouth, MA, on May 14-19, 2002. The meetings have been traditionally attended by scientists from universities, research centers and industry, by postdoctoral fellows and graduate students Indeed, they have been characterized by a very large percentage of young investigators (particularly graduate students), a virtue that is highly educational and will be maintained. It has been estimated that picornaviruses cause >6 billion human infections/yr. and although most infections are self-limiting, a very large proportion cause serious if not fatal human disease. Moreover, new dangerous virus strains are emerging (see the recent outbreak of a new strain of enterovirus 71 in Taiwan). In addition, picornaviruses are the cause of serious animal diseases of which foot- and mouth disease virus (FMDW) may be cited as example. Apart from topics of epidemiology, mechanisms of pathogenesis, structure, and replication, it is planned to organize two workshops within the program that will cover topics of greatest current interest. The first will be dedicated to the cause of the foot-and-mouth disease epizootic ravaging England at the present time, its impact on society, and possibilities of prevention. The over will discuss the difficulties (circulation of vaccine strains, recent outbreak of poliomyelitis in the Western Hemisphere) that have emerged during the current, historic effect to globally eradicate poliovirus.