"Understanding how HIV disables the immune response is the platform on which HIV vaccine research relies," said Warner Greene, MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, and UCSF professor of medicine, microbiology, and immunology.

MEDIA ARE INVITED TO COVER
Dates & Times: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 -- 9:00 am to 5:30 pm
Thursday, October 23, 2003--8am to noon

Location: Cole Hall (Wednesday venue)
Health Sciences West 300 (Thursday venue)
UCSF Campus, 513 Parnassus, San Francisco

Highlights on Wednesday include presentations by Melissa Pope, PhD, scientist at the Population Council's Center for Biomedical Research, and Dan R. Littman, MD, PhD, investigator at NYU's Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Research on the role of dendritic cells. "Dendritic cells may be acting as a Trojan Horse carrying the HIV virus from the initial infections sites at the mucosal surface to lymph nodes and T-cells where they disgorge the virus," said Greene.

Thursday highlights include presentations by Richard Koup, MD, chief of the NIAID/NIH Vaccine Research Laboratory's Immunology Laboratory, and John Moore, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University's Weill Medical College. "Dr. Koup will explain how HIV preferentially targets the HIV specific T-cells that are needed to fight HIV. Dr. Moore will discuss his work on the development of entry inhibitors, which are promising potential anti-HIV drugs and/or microbicides," said Greene.

The symposium will begin at 9:30 am Wednesday October 22, with remarks by Paul A. Volberding, MD, co-director of the UCSF-GIVI CFAR, professor and vice-chai
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Contact: Jeff Sheehy
jsheehy@psg.ucsf.edu
415-597-8165
University of California - San Francisco
9-Oct-2003