The Annual American Society for Virology (ASV) Meeting is one of the largest national meetings focused on virus research. It promotes discussion and facilitates collaboration among scientists across the field of virology. This year’s conference, hosted by the University of Minnesota, saw over 1450 scientists and doctors coming from around the world to showcase their research to internationally recognized scholars in the field.

Presenter at conference

“There is a greater need than ever for having scientific meetings like these and having the correct dialogue around disseminating and communicating research findings, and establishing new interactions and collaborations,” said Dr. Louis Mansky, Professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School and the School of Dentistry and Director of the Institute for Molecular Virology. 

As the key organizer of the 2011 ASV Meeting at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Mansky passed the torch on to his colleague Dr. Reuben Harris, Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School and the College of Biological Sciences and Associate Director at the Institute for Molecular Virology, for this year’s conference. 

“The ASV and its leadership were really impressed by what they saw here last time,” said Dr. Mansky, “This is a large, complex, Tier 1 research university with the facilities to host a meeting like this and show that this is an important discipline that is worthy of greater emphasis and investment.”

With the constantly shifting landscape of virology, leading institutions and organizations that foster pioneering research remain paramount to maintaining that growth and advancement.

“The direct, long term collaborations that come out of these meetings are very important for the overall advancement of research,” Dr. Harris commented, “The University of Minnesota has been at the forefront of that kind of virus research for decades, so why go anywhere else to showcase that?”