MEMO
TO: Reporters, Editors, and Producers
FROM: Seema Kumar and Eve Nichols
DATE: October 21, 1997
RE: Whitehead Symposium 1997 Tackles Infectious Disease
A Press Invitation
Infectious diseases, once considered a scourge of the past, have re-emerged as a surprisingly complex and intractable problem. And, unless we remain vigilant and continue to develop new weapons to fight them, microbes will evolve new ways to invade our defenses, says Dr. Gerald Fink, Director of the Whitehead Institute.
A host of microbial enemies currently pose a threat to human health: some, like HIV, are new foes, and others, like tuberculosis, are old adversaries that have re-emerged in more menacing forms. Our best hope for combating these organisms comes in the form of scientific breakthroughs that promise new weapons and a better understanding of the advancing plagues. What are these breakthroughs and what intelligence have researchers gathered about modern plagues? What new weapons have they developed to fight these enemies, and how will these findings benefit the public?
At the fifteenth annual Whitehead Symposium, nearly two dozen of the world's leading experts on infectious diseases will join keynote speakers Dr. Clarence J. Peters of the Centers for Disease Control and Dr. Stanley Falkow of Stanford University School of Medicine to answer these questions, discuss the state of the knowledge in this field, and report the latest results from their laboratories.
When: Sunday, October 26 from 8 to 10:00 p.m.
Monday and Tuesday, October 27 and 28 from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Special Press Luncheon: October 27, 12:30 p.m.
Where: Kresge Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Massachusetts Avenue across from the main entrance of MIT.
Topics range from pathogenesis and resistance to genomics and emerging organisms. The lectures provide the press an opportunity to gain a broad overview of the field and to catch up on the latest advances. You can also catch up with some of the speakers at a special press luncheon we have organized on October 21. If you are interested in attending the luncheon, call us.
A copy of the program is attached. If you would like to attend the keynote addresses, the lectures, and/or the press luncheon, RSVP by 3 p.m., October 24, to Seema Kumar or Eve Nichols at (617) 258-5183. Call us if you need more information.
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Whitehead Symposium XV
October 26-28, 1997
Sunday, October 26
Session I
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Gerald R. Fink
Welcoming Remarks
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Stanley Falkow
"The New "Face" of Medical Microbiology"
Clarence J. Peters
"Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow"
Monday, October 27
Session II
9:00 am - 12:30 pm
PATHOGENESIS AND RESISTANCE
Chairperson: Staffan Normark
John Mekalanos
"Genetic and Biochemical Interplay of Virulence Factors during Cholera Pathogenesis"
Nathaniel R. Landau
"The Role of CC--Chemokine Receptor 5 in HIV Transmission and Pathogenesis"Don Ganem
"Human Herpesvirus 8 and the Biology of Kaposi's Sarcoma"Christopher T. Walsh
"Molecular Basis of Bacterial Resistance to Vancomycin"
Lunch
Session III
2:00 pm - 5:30 pm
HOST-PARASITE RELATIONSHIP
Chairperson: Piet Borst
Patricia Zambryski
"Agrobacterium and Plant Viruses as Probes for Movement of Single Strand Nucleic Acid - Protein Complexes into and between Plant Cells"Norma Windsor Andrews
"The Role of Signal Transduction and Lysosome Recruitment in Host Cell Invasion by Trypanosomes"Pascale Cossart
"Interactions of the Bacterial Pathogen Listeria monocytogenes with Mammalian Cells: Bacterial Factors, Cellular Ligands, Signaling"Guy Cornelis
"The Yersinia Yop Virulon. A New Type of Bacterial Piracy"
Tuesday, October 28
Session IV 9:00 am - 12:30 pm
IMMUNITY
Chairperson: Hidde Ploegh
Philippa Marrack
"Managing T Cells"Richard M. Locksley
"Effector T Cell Development: Making the Right Choice"Margaret A. Liu
"DNA Vaccines: Preclinical Efficacy and Mechanisms of Immunogenicity"Louis H. Miller
"Strategies for a Blood Stage Vaccine Against Malaria"
Lunch
Session V 2:00 pm - 5:30 pm
GENOMICS AND EMERGING ORGANISMS
Chairperson: Peter S. Kim
J. Craig Venter
"The Human Genome Project: From Microbes to Man"Susan L. Lindquist
"The Psi Factor, a Novel Prion-like Genetic Element in Yeast"James M. Musser
"Molecular Population Genetics of Emerged Bacterial Pathogens"Frederick Blattner
"Sequencing Bacterial Pathogens"
SPEAKER AFFILIATIONS
Norma Windsor Andrews
Yale University School of Medicine
Frederick Blattner
University of Wisconsin
Piet Borst
Netherlands Cancer Institute
Guy Cornelis
University of Louvain Medical School
Pascale Cossart
Institut Pasteur
Stanley Falkow
Stanford University School of Medicine
Don Ganem
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
University of California, San Francisco
Peter S. Kim
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nathaniel R. Landau
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center
Susan L. Lindquist
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The University of Chicago
Margaret A. Liu
Chiron Corporation
Richard M. Locksley
University of California, San Francisco
Philippa Marrack
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
National Jewish Medical and Research Center
John Mekalanos
Harvard Medical School
Louis H. Miller
National Institutes of Health
James M. Musser
Baylor College of Medicine
Staffan Normark
Karolinska Institute
Clarence J. Peters
Centers for Disease Control
Hidde Ploegh
Harvard Medical School
Christopher T. Walsh
Harvard Medical School
J. Craig Venter
The Institute for Genomic Research
Patricia Zambryski
University of California, Berkeley
MESSAGE CENTER
Telephone and message boards are located at the registration desk in the lobby of Kresge Auditorium. The symposium telephone number is 617/253-2909, and participants may give out this number to receive messages.
LUNCH
Special Press Luncheon: October 27, 12:30 p.m. at the West lounge in the MIT Student Center. On Tuesday, October 28, lunch will be served at 12:30 p.m. in the MIT Student Center.
SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZERS
Gerald R. Fink, Chairman
Herman Eisen
Paul Matsudaira
John Mekalanos
Hidde Ploegh
Richard Young