Vaccine and Immunotherapy Technologies
9-11 April 2008, Canberra

Vaccine and Immunotherapy Technologies brings together eminent experts from around the world for a vibrant and cutting-edge conference program.

The conference provides a balanced and diverse insight into the rapidly evolving scientific area of vaccines and immunotherapy. It showcases the most recent high-tech basic science concepts in vaccine and immunotherapy research, and highlights the challenges of deployment and delivery of vaccines in the real world.

Speakers from Australia, Asia, Europe and the US discuss the many severe research and applied challenges that remain in the fields of vaccines and immunotherapy, but also present current success stories such as the introduction of the first vaccine against cervical cancer.

Vaccine and Immunotherapy Technologies is jointly managed by the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

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Program Organising Committee:

Program

WEDNESDAY 9 APRIL

9.00amWelcome
Professor Kurt Lambeck, PresAA, FRS
Australian Academy of Science
9.05amOpening Address
Senator The Honourable Jan McLucas
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing
9.15amWednesday Plenary Address
Professor Ian Frazer, FAA, FTSE
Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine, University of Queensland
Controlling cancer through immunisation - a glass half full?

SESSION 1: Vaccine and immunotherapy super challenges

Chair: Professor Ian Ramshaw
John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University

10.00amDr Wayne Koff
International AIDS Vaccines Initiative, USA
Accelerating AIDS vaccine development: Challenges and opportunities
11.00amProfessor Warwick Britton
Central Clinical School, University of Sydney; Mycobacterial Research Group, The Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology
New solutions to the challenge of vaccines for tuberculosis
11.30amDr Louis Schofield
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne
Prospects for the development of an anti-toxic vaccine against malaria
12.00pmProfessor Andy Morgan
School of Medical Sciences, University of Bristol, UK
Prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines against Epstein-Barr virus and its associated cancers

SESSION 2: Vaccine and immunotherapy super challenges (continued)

Chair: Professor Ian Gust, FTSE
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne

1.30pmDr Peter Daniels
CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory
Emerging antigenic mismatch between H5N1 avian influenza field strains and available vaccines: The animal health response
2.00pmProfessor Hualan Chen
National Avian Reference Laboratory, Harbin, China
Development and application of vaccines for H5N1 avian influenza
2.30pmProfessor Lawrence Stanberry
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, USA
Herpes simplex virus vaccine development: Insights and conundrums

SESSION 3: Vaccine and immunotherapy super challenges (continued)

Chair: Professor Kenneth K Wu
National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan

3.30pmProfessor Eric Gowans
Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health, Melbourne
Dendritic cell immunotherapy to treat patients with persistent hepatitis C virus infection
4.00pmDr Deborah Fuller
Center for Immunology and Microbial Disease Albany Medical College, Albany, USA
Immunotherapeutic DNA vaccines for HIV: Increased immune function and viral control in the nonhuman primate model for AIDS

THURSDAY 10 APRIL

SESSION 4: Optimising vaccine delivery

Chair: Professor Peter Gray, FTSE
Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, University of Queensland

8.45amThursday Plenary Address
Associate Professor Eugene Maraskovsky
CSL Limited, Australia
ISCOMATRIX® adjuvant for prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines
9.30amAssociate Professor David Jackson
National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, University of Melbourne
Simple synthetic lipid structures target vaccine cargos to dendritic cells
10.00amProfessor Rajiv Khanna
Australian Centre for Vaccine Development, Queensland Institute of Medical Research
Multiepitope vaccines for the prevention of Herpesvirus associated diseases

SESSION 5: Rational design and regulatory issues of immunotherapeutic vaccines

Chair: Professor Peter Colman, FAA, FTSE
Structural Biology Division, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne

11.00amDr Anne De Groot
Epivax Inc; Brown University Center for Genomics and Proteommics, USA
Computer-driven vaccine design: From concept to reality
11.30pmProfessor Zihe Rao
Nankai University, Tianjin, China
Structural proteomics of the SARS coronavirus: Structure, function and interaction of the replicase proteins
12.00pmProfessor Stephen Kent
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne
Immunotherapy of HIV

SESSION 6: Vaccine development and deployment: non-technical constraints

Chair: Professor Kenneth K Wu
National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan

2.00pmDr Luc Hessel
Sanofi Pasteur MSD, Lyon, France
Transfer of technology as a solution to vaccine access?
2.30pmProfessor Anton Middelberg, FTSE
Centre for Biomolecular Engineering, University of Queensland
The downstream self-assembly bioprocessing of virus-like vaccines

SESSION 7: Vaccine procurement, distribution and delivery in the developing world

Chair: Ms Beth Slatyer
Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Canberra

3.30pmDr John Clemens
International Vaccine Institute, South Korea
New approaches to evaluating vaccine herd protection: Implications for future trials of vaccines against enteric infections
4.00pmDr Julian Lob-Levyt
Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Switzerland
Delivering the promise: New markets, new money and new models of development aid

CONFERENCE DINNER

7.00pmDinner speaker
Dr Norman Swan
Science Unit, ABC Radio National

FRIDAY 11 APRIL

SESSION 8: Immune regulation and strategies to identify protective responses

Chair: Professor Graham Mitchell, FAA, FTSE
Foursight Associates, Melbourne

8.45amFriday Plenary Address
Sir Gustav Nossal, FAA, FTSE
The University of Melbourne
Global immunisation: Recent trends in research and programme delivery
9.30amProfessor Takashi Nishimura
Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University, Japan
Tumor vaccine cell therapy to overcome tumor escape mechanisms
10.00amDr Nathalie Garçon
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Belgium
Using novel adjuvants to improve vaccine performance
11.00amAssociate Professor David Sinclair
Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
Accelerating vaccine discovery for multiple pathogens using ORFeome screening technologies
11.30amDr Gabrielle Belz
Division of Immunology, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne
Intrinsic and extrinsic regulation of protective immune responses in pathogen infections
12.00pmProfessor Jonathan Sprent, FAA
Immunology and Inflammation Research Programme, Garvin Institute of Medical Research, Sydney
Stimulating subsets of T cells with cytokine/antibody complexes