The Fifth International Meeting on Replicating Oncolytic Virus Therapeutics will be held March 18-21, 2009 and will consist of several sessions with both invited speakers and short presentations from selected abstracts. The oral presentations will be held in the morning (8 - 11:30 am) and evening sessions (6:30 - 9:30pm) with afternoons free for smaller discussion groups, poster sessions and opportunities for informal interactions. At present we are planning for a maximum of 130 participants. The topics to be covered include:

Mechanism of Action of Replicating Oncolytic Viruses

Sessions will be held on pre-clinical studies involving DNA viruses (Adenovirus, Herpesvirus, AAV, Myxoma and Vaccinia) and RNA viruses (Reovirus, Newcastle Disease virus, Picornavirus, Sindbis Virus, Vesicular Stomatitis virus, Measles, Retrovirus). These sessions will focus on the development of novel viral therapeutics and on understanding the mechanism of how viruses can specifically target tumor cells.

Clinical Trials with Oncolytic Viruses

We will devote one session entirely to Phase I/II testing of oncolytic viruses. There are at least twenty trials of this type ongoing currently and it is clearly time to begin comparing and contrasting these studies.

Pathogenesis of Virus Infections

A session will be devoted to pathogenesis of viral infections and regulatory issues, the two topics clearly going hand in hand in the development of novel viral therapeutics. Invited speakers will be experts in the area of virus population dynamics, virulence, attenuation and we plan to have representatives from regulatory agencies.

The Future of Oncolytic Viruses

The final session will be on obstacles that face all of us in the field trying to develop therapeutics of this type. As an example, the host immune response to viruses has clearly been a problem to date in trying to systemically deliver a virus therapeutic. We plan to have talks given by individuals with expertise on immune system reaction to viruses and others will discuss strategies to overcome and/or to exploit the immune system for therapeutic benefit.