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These funds support the 19th Evergreen International Phage Biology Meeting. The meeting has been historically held in Olympia, WA at Evergreen State College and is scheduled for August 7-12, 2011.<P> The meeting is designed to bring together a diverse group of biotechnologists and basic research scientists engaged in applying bacteriophage (phage) biology to current needs in health, food safety, biodefense and biotechnology. Also expected are funding agency personnel, regulators and journalists. The funding will be utilized to facilitate the participation of U.S. scientists, especially young investigators, under-represented minorities, and phage scientists from underdeveloped countries. <P>
The Evergreen meeting has the distinction of being the dedicated Phage meeting with the greatest longevity. It has met biannually for the past 36 years. This meeting has evolved from classical phage biology to more genomics, ecology and phage-applications/biotechnology theme. This meeting has historically included eastern European and Former Soviet Union (FSU) scientists, (who often can not afford international travel) bringing US access to extensive phage collections, phage therapy for both animals and human use, and maintaining an informal and interactive atmosphere resulting in many inter-continental collaborations.<P>
This year's program will include sessions on human health around the world, food safety, aquaculture and plant, human and large mammal applications as well as new insights into basic phage biology, host-phage interactions and ecological implications in a wide range of systems.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<BR> There has been a recent increase in phage phage research, but most of these are only 1-2 day regional and/or special topic meetings. The Evergreen meeting is still the only ongoing meeting in the world devoted exclusively to phage work, occurring biannually in odd years. Since the mid 1970s, the Evergreen International Phage Biology meeting has evolved as the most reliable and general phage meeting, celebrating its 18th biannual meeting in 2009; it is counted on both to bring new researchers into the phage community and to enhance collaboration and sharing of tools among people from phage labs everywhere. Areas ranging from classical phage biology and molecular genetics, ecology, genomics, and phage therapy and biotechnology become integrated. Over the last decade, fairly general international phage meetings in various other venues have been taking place in the years between the Evergreen meetings, as listed above. There was an initiative at the 2008 Edinburgh Phage meeting for an international society to further the interests of the phage community and to serve as a reliable source of phage information for governments and lay people alike. This initiative was advanced at the 2009 Evergreen meeting and this year, a group of Trustees, scientific Advisors and Officers were selected at the 2010 Conference at the Viruses of Microbes meeting, Pasteur Institute, with the first International Society for the Viruses of Microbes meeting to be held in 2012 in Belgium. The 2009 Evergreen meeting thus served as a point for phage scientists to meet, congeal, and make key decisions about forming an international society, and that work will continue at the 2011 meeting. It is our hope sufficient grant funding for the 19th Evergreen meeting, along with some industrial funding, will continue to allow us to maintain the high level of scientific exchange and cooperative efforts despite the growing challenges in terms of air fares and grant scarcity. We especially encourage junior scientist involvement by seeking support for US student travel as well as travel for junior scientists from various established and developing countries where there is strong interest in phage therapeutics to help deal with a number of major international health problems.
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APPROACH:<BR> This meeting will be held in the usual format of speaker sessions and poster sessions. Uniquely, most posters can remain standing for most of the meeting, to allow optimal interaction among the attendees. Meeting Evaluation: Input from meeting attendees for improving future meetings. In order to be even more responsive to the needs of the attendees, and to continually improve on the content and scope of the meeting, we plan to ask for input from the attendees. We will both hand out a form to be filled out at the meeting and we will also e-mail all attendees the form, in the event they have new ideas that arise after having had a chance to more fully digest the content. The questions will include: 1. Overall, how would you rate this semi-annual meeting: Scale 1 - poor, 2-fair, 3-good, 4-very good, 5- excellent. 2. What did you like most about the meeting? 3. What did you like least about the meeting? 4. What particular topics and keynote speakers would you recommend for the next Evergreen meeting? 5. Any other comments or suggestions for future meetings? 6. What is your particular area of specialization related to phage? 7. How did you learn about the Evergreen meeting?