AIDS at 25

On Sunday, August 13, the lights will go up on one of the largest recurring gatherings of scientists and researchers in the world. With 24,000 participants, 3,000 journalists, and 4,500 officially-presented reports, the 16th International AIDS Conference will resemble a hectic city within its host metropolis of Toronto.

International AIDS Conferences are organized by the International AIDS Society; they have been held every other year since 1985. For a week spanning from Sunday the 13th to Friday the 18th of August, the Metro Toronto Convention Center in the downtown area of the city will crackle with energy as participants race back and forth from their lodgings to abstract-driven panel discussions, plenary sessions, poster exhibitions, and cultural activities, while trying to find a spare moment to eat, network, file a news report, or simply catch their breath.

Participants will come from many countries, some on scholarship. Representatives of faith-based organizations engaged in the response to HIV/AIDS will be present. Protestors are expected to arrive, making their opinions known through brash and theatrical acts. Activists will rub shoulders with bench scientists, luminaries will address crowds, and the conference will go on, offering far more than one individual can hope to see and do during the week.

Parts of the proceedings will be handled with appropriate secrecy. Because many of the attendees are people living with HIV/AIDS, and because for many of these people, their HIV/AIDS status is unknown and might be a liability in their home countries, photography is restricted within the conference, and certain zones--like the PLWHA Lounge, a lounge for persons living with HIV/AIDS--are off-limits to journalists.

The biggest challenge to participants at the conference, though, is the sheer amount of information on offer. To even the most relentlessly energetic delegate or journalist, the old adage applies: you can't do it all.

This blog will deliver running commentary on the AIDS Conference from three bloggers; two who will be in attendance at the Conference as working journalists, and one epidemiologist blogger who needs no introduction, and will be blogging the Conference remotely about the scientific abstracts coming out of it.

Meet the Bloggers:

Lindsay Borthwick earned a master's degree in neuroscience from McGill University in Montreal before completing a degree in science journalism at Ryerson University, where she was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Graduate Science Writer Scholarship in her second year. She joined Seed in Montreal and moved with the company to New York City; she now works for Seed as a Special Projects Editor. She lives in Toronto.

Hannah Hoag is a Montreal-based journalist specializing in science and medicine. She holds a B.Sc. degree in life sciences from Queen's University in Ontario, a M.Sc. in biology from McGill University, and a M.Sc. in science journalism from the Knight Center for Science and Medical Journalism at Boston University. Hannah has written for a variety of magazines and newspapers including Discover, New Scientist, Hour, Seed, Nature Jobs, The Montreal Gazette, the Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Geographic, and Nature Medicine.

Tara C. Smith is currently an assistant professor of Epidemiology in Iowa. Born and raised in Findlay, Ohio, Tara received her B.S. in Biology from Yale University in 1998. A "temporary" stint as a technician led to a Ph.D. in microbial pathogenesis and virulence factor regulation in Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus) at the Medical University of Ohio in Toledo. She completed post-doctoral training in molecular epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Her current research centers on investigation of hypervariable proteins in the group B streptococcus, S. agalactiae. Other current projects involve studying the epidemiology and molecular biology of E. coli, Streptococcus suis, and influenza. Additional interests include microbial ecology, emerging diseases, zoonoses, and infectious causes of chronic disease.

Tara will be bringing her epidemiologist's perspective to bear on the science coming out of the Conference, while Lindsay and Hannah will be brining you the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of the Conference gathering itself, blogging about what it's like to be a working journalist at such a monumental (and occasionally overwhelming) event. They will also be filing news reports for the special coverage of the Conference at seedmagazine.com.

In the meantime, whet your appetite at the Conference official website: www.aids2006.org