Conference--Molecular Helminthology, Integrated Approach

描述(申请人提供)：Keystone研讨会是一种聚焦于多细胞真核寄生虫的会议，多细胞寄生虫是世界上致病的主要原因。对于蠕虫宿主-寄生虫共同进化领域来说，这是一个令人兴奋的时刻。随着曼氏血吸虫、日本血吸虫和马来丝虫的基因组序列将分别达到9倍的覆盖范围，2004年将有超过20万条针对血吸虫的EST和超过20万条针对线虫物种的EST，蠕虫与其宿主相互作用的分子和细胞生物学的进展将会加快。对转基因和蛋白质组的研究以及基因转移、基因敲除和RNA干扰等技术和工具的研究正在复兴。这些工具，它们允许的操纵和假设，将是这次独特会议的主题。到2005年，新的信息和技术进步的成果将可用。该会议结合了广泛的蠕虫研究领域，从发育生物学、信号转导和功能基因组学等基础科学到疫苗和药物设计的靶标以及耐药性等应用方面，其主题是宿主和寄生虫分子如何各自促进宿主-寄生虫的共同进化。预计会议将促进研究人员之间的合作，目标是为药物、疫苗和诊断测试的开发确定新的目标，提供生物和信息学资源和工具，用于快速表征和分析它们，分析宿主-寄生虫相互作用的生物学基础，并通过吸引对该领域的活力至关重要的新的年轻人才。当然，有一些关于蠕虫的有趣的科学问题等待着回答。其中一些问题的中心主题是寄生的本质。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Keystone Symposia is a one of a kind meeting that focuses on multicellular eukaryotic parasites that are a major cause of morbidity in the world. This is an exciting time for the field of helminth host-parasite co-evolution. Advances in molecular and cellular biology of helminth parasite interactions with their hosts are being and are expected to accelerate as the genomic sequence of Schistosoma mansoni, S. japonicum and Brugia malayi will each be at 9X coverage and more than 200,000 ESTs for Schistosoma and over 200,000 ESTs for nematode species will be available during 2004. A renaissance of approach with studies on the transcrtptome and proteome and of technology and tools, such as gene transfers, gene knock-outs and RNA interference is underway. These tools, the manipulations and hypotheses they will allow, will be the topics for this unique conference. By the year 2005 the fruits of the new information and technological advances will be available. The Conference which combines broad areas of helminth research ranging from basic science such as developmental biology, signal transduction, and functional genomics translated to the applied aspects such as targets for vaccine and drug design and drug resistance has as its theme how host and parasite molecules each contribute to host-parasite co-evolution. It is expected that the conference will promote collaboration among researchers with the goal of identifying new targets for the development of drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests, by providing the biological and informatic resources and tools for their rapid characterization and analysis, by analyzing the biological basis of host-parasite interactions and by attracting new young talent which is essential for the vitality of the field. Certainly there are fascinating scientific questions waiting to be answered about helminths. Some of those questions have as their central theme the very nature of parasitism.