UGA will host the third annual Immunobiology of Influenza Virus Infection conference July 26-28 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel. The conference will bring together the world’s leading influenza researchers, including basic and applied science workers from academia, government and industry, who are seeking ways to translate new basic research findings about rapidly evolving influenza viruses into effective vaccines and therapies.
Each year in the U.S. influenza kills more than 36,000 people and hospitalizes 200,000 more. Worldwide, annual epidemics cause about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.
But conference co-chair Mark Tompkins, an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s infectious diseases department, said that while there will still be important presentations on non-H1N1 influenza virus research, last spring’s outbreak of H1N1 (swine flu) “has shifted the direction of some of the talks because many of the speakers invited to the meeting are involved in the response to the H1N1 pandemic.
“The timing has given scientists the opportunity to study and learn from a pandemic in real time. We have already learned many things that will shape future responses,” he said.
This is the second year UGA has hosted the conference, presented by the Influenza Pathogenesis and Immunology Research Center, one of six National Influenza Centers of Excellence funded by National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. UGA and Emory University are partners in the IPIRC.
On July 26, Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger of NIH/NIAID will present the conference keynote address, “Insights derived from studies with the 1918 ‘Spanish’ A influenza.” Taubenberger initiated a project to recover the 1918 influenza virus from autopsy tissues of its victims in 1995, and his laboratory published the first 1918 sequence fragments in 1997.
Since then, he has worked to determine the complete genetic sequence of the 1918 influenza virus and with multiple collaborations, provided many insights into the anatomy of the last pandemic H1N1 virus.