HIV Dynamics & Evolution 2008

This year was the 15th occasion of the yearly HIV dynamics & evolution meeting series. This time the meeting attracted more participants than for many years. This is the only meeting where HIV theoreticians can present their analyses in full mathematical detail. As this is a fast moving field, as usual the meeting had many cutting-edge, yet unpublished, presentations. The meeting is arranged so to encourage discussions, and many sessions saw lively interactions between presenters and audience. Several presentations discussed analyses of the massive amounts of data from new next-generation-sequencing platforms. These new platforms can sample extremely deep into populations and display the amazing genetic variability of HIV. This causes new challenges for data analysis and treatment of methodological errors. A new session for this year focused especially on recent developments of software for analyses of genetic variation in virus evolution. This meeting also reported on lessons from other virus systems such as Hantavirus, West Nile virus and Hepatitis C. Special attention was given to the emerging field of phylodynamics in the more general area of molecular epidemiology. Phylodynamics joins the forces of traditional epidemiology with that of immunodynamics and evolutionary biology to analyze pathogen spread and effects on human populations. Dynamic processes of virus and host interactions were discussed in a few sessions revealing novel results on acute infections and on how long virus forms may live in infected persons. Finally, analyses of the global variation of HIV showed new virus forms from previously underrepresented countries. Many participants said this was one of the best meetings so far, with many interesting presentations, both oral and posters, where all sessions were full, so we conclude it was a successful meeting. The meeting was supported by funds from the Institute for Advanced Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Office of AIDS Research, and the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Next years meeting will be in Oxford, UK.