Viral epidemics, public health and universal vaccine against influenza, in the international conference Viruses2020
“The Long Road to a Universal Influenza Virus Vaccine” is the title of the master conference to be given by the expert Peter Palese, from the School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (United States), in the opening ceremony for the conference Viruses2020 -to take place on Wednesday, February 5, at 9 a.m. This international conference will gather more than two hundred participants and is promoted by a committee presided by Professor Albert Bosch, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the Faculty of Biology of the UB, and the expert Eric O. Freed from the National Cancer Institute (United States).
“The Long Road to a Universal Influenza Virus Vaccine” is the title of the master conference to be given by the expert Peter Palese, from the School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (United States), in the opening ceremony for the conference Viruses2020 -to take place on Wednesday, February 5, at 9 a.m. This international conference will gather more than two hundred participants and is promoted by a committee presided by Professor Albert Bosch, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the Faculty of Biology of the UB, and the expert Eric O. Freed from the National Cancer Institute (United States).
During his speech, Peter Palese will talk about the most recent studies on a protein from the surface of influenza -hemagglutinin- which could lead to the development of a vaccine against influenza, a viral infection that can create annual epidemics with about five million affected people and more than 600,000 deaths worldwide.
As part of this forum, which will take place from February 5 to 7 in the headquarters of Axa auditorium, the experts will show the latest advances in viral pathogenesis, innate immunity, viral replication and the evolution of viruses, among other content. In the 21st Century world, “the challenge is to be always ready for the challenges that can come up regarding globalization and climate change, which contribute to the emergence of viral infections”, notes Alfred Bosch, president of the Spanish Society of Virology (SEV).
Globalization, public health and viral epidemics
“This work can only be based on solid knowledge on the molecular biology of the different viruses”, continues Bosch. “Regarding coronavirus, it is a fascinating group of viruses from the molecular perspective, which were not thought to be related to any important public health problem. When the SARS, MERS and 2019-nCoV (Wuhan) infectious episodes of coronavirus appeared, the basic knowledge of the scientific community have been determining to enable fast progress in the research on this coronavirus, as relevant as human pathogens”.
Regarding the emerging viral infection episodes “we should avoid panic and develop tools for diagnosis -like in the coronavirus case- in order to establish control systems. Afterwards, we need knowledge on their transmission, reservoirs, etc. and this is the current phase we are in. The next step would be, therefore, to work on therapies, prophylactic therapies like vaccines, or antiviral ones”.
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