Twelfth International Foamy Virus Conference—Meeting Report
Ottmar Herchenröder,
Martin Löchelt,
Florence Buseyne,
Antoine Gessain,
Marcelo A. Soares,
Arifa S. Khan,
Dirk Lindemann
Affiliations
Ottmar Herchenröder
Institut für Experimentelle Gentherapie und Tumorforschung, Universitätsmedizin Rostock, 18057 Rostock, Germany
Martin Löchelt
Department of Viral Transformation Mechanisms, Research Program Infection, Inflammation and Cancer, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Florence Buseyne
Unité d’épidémiologie et physiopathologie des virus oncogènes, Institut Pasteur, 75015 Paris, France
Antoine Gessain
Unité d’épidémiologie et physiopathologie des virus oncogènes, Institut Pasteur, 75015 Paris, France
Marcelo A. Soares
Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-590, Brazil
Arifa S. Khan
Laboratory of Retroviruses, Division of Viral Products, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD 20993, USA
Dirk Lindemann
Institute of Virology, Medical Faculty “Carl Gustav Carus”, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
The 12th International Foamy Virus Conference took place on 30⁻31 August 2018 at the Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany. The meeting included presentations on current research on non-human primate and non-primate foamy viruses (FVs; also called spumaretroviruses) as well as keynote talks on related research areas in retroviruses. The taxonomy of foamy viruses was updated earlier this year to create five new genera in the subfamily, Spumaretrovirinae, based on their animal hosts. Research on viruses from different genera was presented on topics of potential relevance to human health, such as natural infections and cross-species transmission, replication, and viral-host interactions in particular with the immune system, dual retrovirus infections, virus structure and biology, and viral vectors for gene therapy. This article provides an overview of the current state-of-the-field, summarizes the meeting highlights, and presents some important questions that need to be addressed in the future.
