Understanding emergence of infectious diseases: focus on new experimental and theoretical approaches to virus evolution
Roscoff (Brittany), France, September 26-30, 2009
Deadline for application: April 30, 2009
Chairperson:Santiago F. Elena
Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-UPV,
CPI 8E, Ingeniero Fausto Elio s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Phone: +34 963 877 895 - Fax: +34 963 877 859
Mail: sfelena@ibmcp.upv.es
Vice-Chairperson: Rémy Froissart
Génétique et Evolution des Maladies Infectieuses (GEMI), CNRS / IRD - UMR 2724, IRD,
911 Avenue Agropolis, B.P. 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
Phone: +33 4 99 62 48 57 – Fax: +33 4 99 62 48 22
Mail: remy.froissart@supagro.inra.fr
New viruses have been emerging during the last decades as a consequence of the climatic change and of the increasing introduction of human societies and its domestic animals and plants into virgin areas of the planet (HIV, SARS, Influenza, Ebola, etc). So far, and despite tremendous economical and manpower investments, efforts to control and eradicate viruses, with a few important exceptions (e.g., poliovirus), have been of quite limited success. Moreover, the perspective of future eradications will be overbalanced by the emergence of new viruses. This lack of success is a consequence of the great evolvability of viral populations owed to their large population size, short generation times and compacted genomes. This dynamic nature of viral populations has been largely ignored by pharmacological treatments. Owing to the failure of current approaches, new ones taking into consideration the evolvability of viral populations are thus very much needed. Understanding the ecological and genetic mechanisms behind the genesis, maintenance, and fate of viral diversity, and the interaction of heterogeneous viral populations with their standard and putative new hosts, became pivotal for the development of such new strategies.
In the recent years, comprehensive research programs have been conducted to gain insights into the mechanisms of emergence of plant and animal viruses. Not always paralleling these empirical progresses, theoreticians have been developing increasingly complex models to account for the peculiarities of viral populations with the aim of predicting their behavior.
The aim of this Jacques Monod Conference is to bring together empiricists and theoreticians working on virus evolution, whatever the host species (animal, plants, bacteria). The conference should then promote a cross-talk that will create the basis for reaching the dual goal of making more biologically realistic models and of designing new hypothesis-driven experiments. To achieve this goal, speakers will then be asked to present their work around one of the four following topics:
- genesis and maintenance of viral diversity,
- evolution of virulence and viral fitness,
- genomic evolution, and
- host-virus coevolution.
Invited speakers
(provisional titles)
BERKHOUT Ben (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
HIV-1 evolution: frustrating antiviral therapies, but disclosing molecular mechanisms
BLANC Stephan (Montpellier, France)
Mutiple infection of individual host cells by genomes of a plant virus population
BONHOEFFER Sebastian (Zurich, Switzerland)
Recombination in HIV-1
BRIONES Carlos (Madrid, Spain)
Evolution of minority memory subpopulations within RNA virus quasispecies
BUCKLING Angus (Oxford, United Kingdom)
Host-virus experimental coevolution
BURCH Christina L. (Chapel Hill, USA)
Viral coinfection allows a test of Wright's physiological model of dominance
CHEVILLON Christine (Montpellier, France)
Dengue virus type 2 evolution in French Guiana through 1993-2006: recombination, selection and migration patterns at light of full-length sequences
DESBIEZ Cécile (Montfavet, France)
Emerging strains of Watermelon mosaic virus in France: evidence for limited spread but rapid local shift in populations
DOMINGO Esteban (Madrid, Spain)
Molecular mechanisms of lethal mutagenesis of RNA viruses
ELENA Santiago F. (Valencia, Spain)
Evolutionary Systems Biology approach to host-virus interaction
FROISSART Rémy (Montpellier, France)
Host omic modifications due to virus adaptation
FROST Simon D.W. (San Diego, USA)
Phylodynamics of simple epidemiological models of HIV and HCV transmission
GANDON Sylvain (Montpellier, France)
Dynamics of mutation load in virus populations
GARCIA-ARENAL Fernando (Madrid, Spain)
Arabidopsis thaliana as a tool to study virus-host coevolution
GOLDBERG Tony L. (Urbana, USA)
Fine-scale ecological drivers of arbovirus evolution: the case of West Nile virus in Chicago, USA
HOLMES Edward C. (University Park, USA)
The evolutionary genomics of RNA viruses
MALIM Michael (London, United Kingdom)
APOBEC proteins and HIV-1 - lethal and beneficial editing?
MANRUBIA Suzanna (Madrid, Spain)
Stochastic extinction of viral infectivity: the role of defectors
MICHALAKIS Yannis (Montpellier, France
Effective population size and plant virus transmission
MOURY Benoît (Montfavet, France)
Adaptation of viral populations to polygenic resistances in plants
ROOSSINCK Marilyn J. (Ardmore, USA)
Plant virus metagenomics
SANJUÁN Rafael (Valencia, Spain)
The role of robustness in evolution: experimental studies
TADDEI François (Paris, France)
Viruses and bacterial life histories
TENAILLON Olivier (Paris, France)
Ecological and genetical bases of Phage-Bacteria coexistence
TURNER Paul E. (New Haven, USA)
Predicting virus emergence: the role of multi-host adaptation
VAN BAALEN Minus (Paris, France)
Multiple infection: the consequences of within-host cooperation and sex on virulence evolution
VOINNET Olivier (Strasbourg, France)
RNA silencing as a modulator of virus evolution
WAIN-HOBSON Simon (Paris, France)
Epigenetic component to viral variation
WICHMAN Holly A. (Moscow, USA)
Distribution of beneficial mutational effects in viral genomes
WILKE Claus O. (Austin, USA)
Lethal mutagenesis in RNA viruses
Deadline for application: April 30, 2009
Registration fee (including board and lodging)
300 € for PhD students
500 € for other participants
Application for registration
The total number of participants is limited to about 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 before the deadline. After it, the chairman 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.