Bioterrorism and emerging infectious disease - antimicrobials, therapeutics and immune-modulators. SARS coronavirus

The purpose of this meeting was to provide a forum for expert presentations and discussion about the threats of bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases, and to address the issues relating to epidemics, prevention of infection and treatment of some of these emerging infectious diseases classified as potential agents of bioterror. Included in the talks were state-of-the-art presentations about infectious clone technology and recombinant viruses, pathogen and receptor interactions at the cellular and molecular level, genomic responses to infection, and new information on antiviral mechanisms of action. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and progress toward understanding the epidemic was addressed, and other sessions were presented concerning immune therapy and immunopotentiation of disease, siRNA and gene silencing, host responses to pathogen infections, as well as the use of genetic engineering to circumvent and direct the immune response. Many discussions were held and data were presented about possible compounds and new drugs that may have antiviral properties, yet there were few discussions of any available new drugs. This report addresses reverse genetics of SARS virus, as well as its epidemiology, and a host of different recent approaches to developing antivirals effective against SARS, including some potential vaccine candidates. Also presented are hypotheses about the human immune response to SARS infection, as well as immune therapies against botulinum and anthrax toxins. This report also addresses antiviral approaches exploiting siRNAs, and different aspects of the host immune response to many of the different dangerous pathogens discussed at this meeting. Finally, approaches to circumventing and directing the immune response using genetic engineering will be reported.