I recently attended the ESF Research Conference "Antiviral RNAi" June 11-15th in Pultusk, Poland. Ben Berkhout, one of Retrovirology’s Associate editors, was a co-organizer of the meeting. Below is a group picture taken at the Polonia Castle in Pultusk.  Several very interesting talks were presented at this conference, and a meeting report is slated to be published in EMBO Reports soon;  so keep your eyes out for that writeup.   Coincidentally, a few days ago, I wrote a short Opinion piece for BMC Biology on RNAi and mammalian viruses.  http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/10/58  It makes for brief reading; so take a look if you are interested in this topic.

Retrovirology publishes meeting Abstracts as supplements to the journal.  This is a service that we provide to the retrovirus research community. On our supplements page http://www.retrovirology.com/supplements, you can view Abstracts from 10 meetings that have been published in Retrovirology, including the recent

Abstracts from the 17th International Symposium on HIV and Emerging Infectious Diseases (ISHEID) http://www.retrovirology.com/supplements/9/S1.  Occasionally, colleagues would ask me "What are the advantages of publishing meeting Abstracts in a journal like Retrovirology compared to simply publishing the Abstracts in a meeting book?"   There are several benefits.  First, a meeting book is accessible only to meeting participants; publishing your Abstract in Retrovirology provides immediate Open Access visibility and accessibility to your work by all interested colleagues who are unable …

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Retrovirology Editorial Board member Jeremy Luban has been elected to the Association of American Physicians (AAP) http://aap-online.org/.  Election to the AAP is regarded as one of the most prestigious recognitions for a research physician.  Below is a picture taken of Jeremy Luban at the April 29th, 2012 AAP induction dinner at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.

TC Wu, Kuan-Teh Jeang, and Jeremy Luban at the AAP induction dinner April 29, 2012

Steve Goff spoke on "Silencing of Retrovirus Expression in Embryonic Stem Cells and A New Retroelement in the Mollusc Mya arenaria" at the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series at the NIH on April 11, 2012.  Goff’s presentation is available as a webcast at http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=10519  Goff’s lecture was hosted by the NIH Virology interest Group (http://sigs.nih.gov/VIG/Pages/default.aspx)

At dinner — (from left to right) Andy Dayton, Kuan-Teh Jeang, Pam Schwartzberg, Malcolm Martin,Fadila Bouamr, Bernard Lafont, Steve Goff   

An international symposium on Infection, Immunity, and Cancer was held January 16-17, 2012 at Kyoto University, Kyoto Japan.  The symposium brought together speakers from Japan, the USA, Taiwan, Germany, and Australia.  The symposium was organized by Prof. Masanori Hatakeyama of Tokyo University and Prof. Masao Matsuoka of Kyoto University.   The setting of this symposium was an opportune occasion for the presentation of the 2011 Retrovirology Prize trophy to Prof. Masao Matsuoka.

  Presentation of the Retrovirology Prize trophy by Kuan-Teh Jeang (left) to Masao Matsuoka (right)

Eric Freed has asked me to post the following announcement about the HIV-1 Keystone meeting in Whistler, Canada.  I would encouraged interested colleague to attend this meeting or to contact Eric (efreed@mail.nih.gov) for more information.   

Announcing Keystone Symposia’s Meeting on “Frontiers in HIV Pathogenesis, Replication and Eradication”  

Apply for a scholarship, submit an abstract and register for Keystone Symposia’s conference on “Frontiers in HIV Pathogenesis, Replication and Eradication,” which takes place March 26–31, 2012 at Whistler Conference Centre in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.  

 Organized by Alan N. Engelman of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Eric O. Freed of National Cancer Institute at Frederick and John M. Coffin of Tufts University, the conference will: Convene with …

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The 23rd Retroviral Pathogenesis meeting will take place in Montpellier on November 2-5, 2011.  The meeting is organized by Marc Sitbon, Jean-Luc Battini, Valerie Courgnaud and Hung Fan.

The website for the meeting is : http://23retropath.igmm.cnrs.fr/   You can also view the program at: http://23retropath.igmm.cnrs.fr/spip.php?rubrique1

This is an exciting meeting for which you still have time to register.  If you need further information, please email Marc Sitbon at marc.sitbon@igmm.cnrs.fr

The 23rd Retroviral Pathogenesis meeting will take place in Montpellier on November 2-5, 2011.  The meeting is organized by Marc Sitbon, Jean-Luc Battini, Valerie Courgnaud and Hung Fan.

The website for the meeting is : http://23retropath.igmm.cnrs.fr/   You can also view the program at: http://23retropath.igmm.cnrs.fr/spip.php?rubrique1

This is an exciting meeting for which you still have time to register.  If you need further information, please email Marc Sitbon at marc.sitbon@igmm.cnrs.f]

Seven Retrovirology editors (Ben Berkhout, Monsef Benkirane, Ariberto Fassati, Masa Fujii, Andrew Lever, Mark Wainberg, and Kuan-Teh Jeang) attended and presented research findings at the recent Frontiers of Retrovirology conference in Amsterdam.   A photo of Ariberto, Teh, Masa and Andrew is pictured below.  Mark your calendar early and reserve your schedule to attend the fall 2013 Frontiers meeting which will take place in Cambridge, England.  Come and meet Retrovirology editors.

Ariberto, Teh, Masa, and Andrew 

Four young investigators were awarded Poster Prizes at the Frontiers of Retrovirology meeting in Amsterdam, held October 3 – 5, 2011.  Their names and poster topics are listed below.  Also below are photos of Ben Berkhout, chair of the meeting organizing committee, awarding the poster prizes to the recipeints.  Support by The AIDS Fonds, Netherlands, for these prizes is gratefully acknowledged. 

Anna Kula, Laboratory of Molecular Virology, ICGEB, Trieste, Italy Characterization of the HIV-1 RNA associated proteome identifies Matrin3 and PSF as nuclear cofactors of Rev function.

Pieter J. Meuwissen, HIV Laboratory, Ghent University, Belgium Nef interferes with development of thymic T cell …

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