ICAAC, September 17 -20 in Toronto

The 40th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy will take place September 17-20, 2000, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This annual conference, organized by the American Society for Microbiology in Washington DC, usually attracts about 10,000 people; it focuses on new developments in antibiotics, and includes substantial HIV presentations.

Comment: We usually find the HIV/AIDS presentations less important in even-numbered years, when ICAAC competes with the International AIDS Conference. But this year a number of researchers did not go to Durban, South Africa, for the international meeting, so this ICAAC may be more important than most which occur on International AIDS Conference years. And researchers who did present in Durban are more likely to speak in Toronto as well, as much of the audience there did not get to Durban.

The abstracts for the ICAAC conference (except for late breakers) will be online later this month, and can be found through the main ICAAC conference page, http://www.icaac.org/.

Meanwhile, a preliminary list of oral presentations is already online; we selected the following, which may be of interest to our readers:

Update in Infectious Diseases. Conveners Ferric C. Fang, Robert T. Schooley, and David A. Relman. An overview of last year's most noteworthy papers on infectious diseases.

Keynote Session: HIV / AIDS: From Discovery, to Prevention and Therapy. Conveners David A. Cooper, Michael S. Saag, and H. Clifford Lane:

AIDS as a Zoonosis: Scientific and Public Health Implications, Beatrice H. Hahn

Progress in HIV Vaccine Development, Gary J Nabel

Antiretroviral Therapy--A Limited Success Story

in Emerging Infections section:

Emerging MRSA in the Community, Julie L. Gerberding, CDC, Atlanta

The Growing Challenge of Fresh Produce-associated Foodbourne Infections, Cindy R. Friedman

Amebiasis: It Was Always There and We Didn't Know It, William A. Petri

in DNA Sequencing as a Diagnostic Tool: Getting to First Base:

Using DNA Sequencing to Monitor Resistance in HIV, Robert W. Shafer

in Innate Immunity:

Antimicrobial Peptides, Tomas Ganz

Lipodystrophy and Metabolic Complications of HIV, Conveners David A. Cooper, Michael S. Saag, and H. Clifford Lane

Mitochondrial Toxicity: Mechanism and Spectrum, William Lewis

Mechanism and Treatment for Insulin Resistance in HIV Lipodystrophy, Steven K. Grinspoon

Cardiovascular Epidemiology in the Context of HIV Disease, Matthias Egger

The Strategy of Antiretroviral Switch Studies -- A Review, William G. Powderly

T-cell Responses to Viruses. Conveners Paul D. Griffiths and Louis J. Picker:

Laboratory Techniques, L.K. Borysiewicz

HIV and CMV, Louis J. Picker

Epstein-Barr Virus and Adoptive T-Cell Therapy, Cliona Rooney

HCV, Rodney E. Phillips.

Tuberculosis: Problems and Promises. Conveners Reneé Ridzon and Jerrold J. Ellner:

New Insights into the Transmission of TB, Reneé Ridzon

How Molecular Approaches Contribute to Our Understanding of TB, Barry N. Kreiswirth

Understanding the Pathogenesis of Tuberculosis and the Implications for Immunotherapy, Gilla Kaplan

Microbiological Monitoring of Tuberculosis for Therapeutic Endpoints, Robert S. Wallis

Is Tuberculosis a Vaccine-preventable Illness? What's on the Horizon? William Jacobs

Viral Co-infections with HIV, conveners TBA:

HHV-8 and HIV, Lawrence Corey

Hepatitis C, David Thomas

CMV, Michael Polis

Current Issues in the Management of HIV-infected Patients. Conveners Paul A. Volberding and Constance A. Benson

The Clinical Use of Resistance Testing, Douglas D. Richman

Management of Metabolic Complications of Therapy, Judith S. Currier

The Dilemma of Treatment Interruption, Roy M. Gulick

Also, several of the Meet-the-Experts Roundtables are relevant:

Antiretroviral Therapy I, with Christine Katlama and Robert L. Murphy.

Antiretroviral Therapy II, with William Cameron and Calvin Cohen.

Antiretroviral Therapy III, with Roy M. Gulick and Michael S. Saag.

Infection Control in Multidrug-resistant Pathogens [antibiotic resistance, not antiretroviral], with Robert A. Weinstein and John M. Conly.

Stopping Opportunistic Infection Prophylaxis, with Henry Masur and Wafaa El-Sadr.

What to Do When the Condom Breaks, with James Kahn and Julie L. Gerberding.


Registration, Housing,
Other Information


Registration and other information is available through the ICAAC Web site, http://www.icaac.org/  This conference is relatively inexpensive; general onsite registration is $350.