ESF Research Conferences

Viral diseases not only form a major threat for human health, but also have a detrimental impact in livestock and agricultural economic activities. RNA interference (RNAi) and RNA silencing are terms denoting an ensemble of regulatory pathways mediated by different families of small RNAs. RNAi is not only important because of its widespread physiological roles, but also because of its high potential as laboratory tool and therapeutic weapon. In this regard, RNAi-based strategies have been used to engineer plants that resist a large variety of viruses, and administration of antiviral small RNAs has been demonstrated to be highly efficient in inhibiting viral infections in mammals, and a number of clinical trials are currently ongoing to assess the safety and efficacy of this therapeutic strategy. The objective of the proposed conference is to review recent advances and to foresee future trends at the interface between RNAi and virus infection, covering the complete range from basic mechanistic RNAi to antiviral clinical trials. We are especially interested in bringing together research conducted in different organisms, since this could raise refreshing new ideas for the participants in the meeting. The conference is mainly devoted to promote European Science. For this reason most of the participants will be from academia, however, some speakers from companies will be invited to bring issues on socio-economic impact of potential applications in the discussion. Our main objective is to offer foremost European research groups a forum to interchange results and ideas among them, but also with leading groups from abroad. Another important goal of the conference will be to provide research groups of European countries where this research field is not yet highly developed the opportunity to have direct access to most vanguard results and technologies, serving as a catapult for further development.

For more information please see the Programme