Dates: September 17-19, 2012
Location: Ames, Iowa USA

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has provided funds for the organization of a Workshop entitled “Vaccines and Diagnostics for Transboundary Animal Diseases,” to be held September 17-19, 2012 in Ames Iowa. The primary objective of the workshop is to discuss state of the art measures to serve U.S. and international needs related to vaccine and diagnostic tool development for significant transboundary diseases.

Industry, government and academic scientists are welcome to participate, present information, and learn of current work in this field. Presentations will be made by representatives of federal agencies, biologics industries, and universities. Diseases to be covered include: highly pathogenic avian influenza; exotic Newcastle disease, foot and mouth disease; Rift Valley fever; Nipah and Hendra virus; African swine fever; classical swine fever; Heartwater; Q fever, Ebola, and Schmallenberg virus. A poster session will also be held to allow novel research on these diseases and other diseases important for the U.S. National Veterinary Stockpile to be presented and to feature the roles of the federal agencies.

The workshop has four goals:

1. Sharing progress on cutting-edge research and providing updates on the current status on vaccines and diagnostics for high priority transboundary animal diseases to help inform the decision making process;
2. Presenting information to academic scientists to help them better understand the regulatory process and how to translate research into licensed novel vaccines and diagnostics for high priority transboundary animal diseases;
3. Providing the opportunity for government officials from each agency working in this area to convey their roles and responsibilities to a broad audience;
4. Bringing together scientists from academia, industry and government in order to stimulate cross-talk.

The Workshop is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate (www.dhs.gov/files/scitech.shtm), the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD) at Kansas State University (www.ceezad.org) – a Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence, the Center for Food Security and Public Health/Institute for International Cooperation in Animal Biologics at Iowa State University, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) www.oie.int and the International Alliance for Biological Standardization (IABS), www.iabs.org.

The organization of this meeting is possible because of the support of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Grant Award Number 2010-ST-061-AG0001.

Registration

Online Registration (Registrations after August 10, 2012 will be charged a late fee.)

Lodging

The meeting will be held at the Gateway Hotel in Ames, Iowa www.gatewayames.com. A block of rooms has been reserved for the conference at the rate of $94 for double or king, $104 for an executive king room. Book rooms by Monday, August 27, 2012 to receive this rate. Call 1-800-FOR-AMES (1-800-367-2637) to reserve a room and reference “Transboundary Animal Diseases Meeting.”

Call for Abstracts for Posters

The Scientific Committee invites participants to submit abstracts for poster presentation at the Workshop. Abstracts are due on Friday, August 10 and should be emailed to iicab@iastate.edu

The Committee will select up to six abstracts for short oral presentations on the last day of the meeting.

Instructions for abstracts are as follows:
Abstracts are limited to one page with one inch margins. Use Times New Roman font, size 12 for text. The title should be in bold. Abstracts should include title, authors, affiliations (use superscripts by authors’ names to indicate affiliations). If all authors are from the same institution, omit superscript numbers for the affiliation. The abstract should include the following headings: Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.