Cell News 03&04/2017
12
MEETING REPORT
The ins and outs of virus infection: from binding to exit
Meeting report of the 16th Workshop “Cell Biology of Viral Infections’’ of the German
Society of Virology (GfV) in Schöntal, November 8th–10th 2017.
By Pierre-Yves Lozach
1
and Gisa Gerold
2
The GfV workshop “Cell Biology of Viral Infection” aims at bringing
together virologists and cell biologists with the intention to pro-
mote and encourage collaborations on cell biological aspects of
virus infections. The 2016 Lasker award to the cellular virologists
Prof. Ralf Bartenschlager and Prof. Charles M. Rice demonstrated
once again that cell biological studies are needed to understand
fundamental principles of virus infection, which may then enable
clinical research. The research of the four keynote speakers of the
2017 meeting also perfectly illustrates this concept.
Dr. Pierre-Yves Lozach (Heidelberg) and Dr. Gisa Gerold (Han-
nover) took on the organization of the 16th annual workshop. The
conference was held at the Kloster Schöntal, Germany, for the
fourth consecutive time; this year from November 8th to 10th
2017. All participants stayed directly at the conference site, which
stimulated active discussions during lunch and dinner gatherings
as well as during the social events such as the wine tasting in the
cellar.
The theme of this year was “The ins and outs of virus infection:
from binding to exit”. The program included four keynote lectures,
a workshop on scientific editing, 24 oral presentations, and a
poster session. The workshop was a great success with 48 partici-
pants, involving among others 26 students, six post-docs, and sev-
en young group leaders. The majority of the junior scientists were
virologists from various German academic research institutes, but
also French and Austrian scientists came to the former Cistercian
monastery. The four excellent keynote speakers from Switzer-
Group photo with 2017 workshop participants in the main entrance of the Kloster Schöntal.
1
CellNetworks, Center of Infectious Diseases, Virology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 324, D-69120 Heidelberg.
2
Twincore, Center for Experimental and Clinical Infection, Research Institute for Experimental Virology, Feodor-Lynen-Str. 7, D-30625
Hannover.
