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We are requesting funds to provide support for the 4th ASM Salmonella conference to be held from from October 5 - 9, 2013, in Boston, MA. This conference is sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology, which provides both management expertise and financial support. <p/>The conference follows previous editions held in Sardinia, Italy (2003), Victoria, BC, Canada (2006), and Aix-en-Provence, France, (2009). This conference series is the only one that covers all aspects of Salmonella research. All preceding ASM Salmonella conferences were well attended and therefore we expect 300-350 attendees from around the world. <p/>The proposed program has a broad scientific focus and will include sessions on Epidemiology, Genetics and Gene Regulation, Vaccine Development, Treatment and Prevention, Host Immune Response, Cell Biology of Infection, Physiology and Metabolism, and Animal Health and Food Safety. The list of invited speakers will include many of the preeminent scientists in the field. Every effort will be made to include women and underrepresented minority groups.<p/>We are confident that the meeting will provide a venue for scientists to present the latest advances in the field and to initiate interdisciplinary interactios and discussion.
PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Salmonellae cause a variety of diseases, ranging from gastroenteritis to enteric fever, in humans and other animals. In the developed world, non-typhoidal serovars (NTS) including Typhimurium, Enteritidis, Heidelberg and Dublin are common food borne pathogens. Other less common serovars can cause disease if introduced into the food chain, as has been well illustrated by the recent Saint Paul outbreak in the U.S. In the U.S., unlike other common food borne infections, including Campylobacter and Shigella, NTS has not shown any signs of decreasing despite major efforts to limit the bacterial burden in farmed poultry and other animals. NTS has a strong association with HIV, since in immunocompromised patients it can cause a severe systemic disease, and is now the most common cause of bacteremia in many sub-Saharan African countries. The enteric fevers, Typhoid and Paratyphoid, are caused by serovars that only infect humans and higher primates. These diseases cause over 20 million infections per year and typhoid alone is responsible for over 200,000 deaths. Drug resistant strains of Salmonella are appearing, some as the result of nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in food producing animals. The conference will provide a forum for the Salmonella research community to present and discuss the most recent advances and ideas. The broad spectrum of subjects covered at this conference, from basic genetics and physiology to pathogenesis and drug resistance, will facilitate interdisciplinary interactions and ultimately accelerate research aimed at controlling and treating Salmonella infections.