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BioMed Central in conjunction with the journal Retrovirologywhich celebrates its 10thanniversary in 2013, held the third biennial Frontiers of Retrovirology conference, 16-18 September 2013 at Churchill College, Cambridge, UK. Thanks to everyone who attended and made it such a stimulating and interactive meeting.

Following the success of the first two Frontiers of Retrovirology conferences in 2009 and 2011, this third meeting, held in the historic university city of Cambridge, brought together leading researchers in human and animal retroviruses and included terrific high-quality talks by both invited speakers and participants selected from the abstracts.

At Frontiers of Retrovirology 2013, many tributes were paid to Kuan-Teh Jeang, the founder of the conference including the inauguration of the Kuan-Teh Jeang Memorial Lecture given by Stephen Goff of Columbia University. The vital and collegiate atmosphere alongside the top-level research presented seemed a fitting legacy for Teh.

Congratulations to the BHIVA prize winners:
BHIVA poster prize: Alex Compton, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France (Abstract P18)
BHIVA short talk prize: Clare Jolly, University College London, UK (Abstract O4)

The abstracts from the conference have been published in the journal Retrovirology and can be found here.

Organizing committee

Andrew Lever (University of Cambridge, UK)
Persephone Borrow (University of Oxford, UK)
Oliver Fackler (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
Ariberto Fassati (University College London, UK)
Masahiro Fujii (Niigata University, Japan)
Stephen Goff (Columbia University, New York, USA)
Michael Malim (King's College London, UK)
Monique Nijhuis (University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands)
Olivier Schwartz (Institut Pasteur, Paris, France)
Ronald Swanstrom (University of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, USA)
Mark A Wainberg (McGill University AIDS Centre, Montreal, Canada)
Brian Willett (University of Glasgow, UK)

Frontiers of Retrovirology 2013 program


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Following the success of the inaugural Frontiers of Retrovirology conference in 2009, the second conference brought together leading human retrovirus researchers to review current progress and to chart future challenges.

The research field of retrovirology is still booming. HIV affects 33 million individuals worldwide and 25 million have died from AIDS. A quarter of a century after the discovery of HIV-1, a curative or a vaccine strategy for AIDS remains elusive. The XMRV retrovirus of mouse origin has recently been implicated in diverse human diseases. HTLV and the oncogenic properties of diverse animal retroviruses remain an important topic of cancer research. The sequencing of several host genomes has provided an intriguing picture of the role played by endogenous retroviruses in genome evolution.

At Frontiers of Retrovirology 2011, internationally renowned speakers presented their insights into the principles guiding the life cycle of endogenous retroelements, complex human retroviruses, and their pathogenic interactions with the hosts.

Organizing committee

Ben Berkhout, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Kuan-Teh Jeang, NIAID, Bethesda, USA and Editor-in-Chief, Retrovirology
Monique Nijhuis, University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands
Guido Vanham, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium
Frank Kirchhoff, University Hospital Ulm, Germany
Rogier Sanders, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA
Ariberto Fassati, University College London, UK

Frontiers of Retrovirology 2011 program


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Delegates explored the Frontiers of Retrovirology at BioMed Central’s first conference in Montpellier, France. This highly successful, well attended event brought together retrovirologists from 24 different countries to review current progress and to chart future challenges for finding a curative strategy for HIV/AIDS.

The sessions covered at this conference included:
Evolution and the beneficial roles of retroelements, restriction of retroelements,  hijacking the cellular machinery, pathogenesis.

Organizing committee

Ali Saib (Institut Universitaire d'Hematologie, Paris, France)
Ben Berkhout (Universiteit Van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Kuan-Teh Jeang (Bethesda, USA)
Matt McKay (BioMed Central, London, UK)
Monsef Benkirane (Institut de Génétique Humaine, Montpellier, France)
Olivier Schwartz (Institut Pasteur, Paris, France)
Stephane Emiliani (Institut Cochin, Paris France)

Frontiers of Retrovirology 2009 program