First African Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology and HIV/AIDS Treatment Management Workshop

First African Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology
the South African HIV/AIDS Treatment Management
and the Seminar on Phylogenetics Evolution and HIV.
2 to 11 of July 2003, Durban and Cape Town, South Africa.

Organized by: Sharon Cassol, Chris Seebregts, Karen Bishop and Tulio de Oliveira

" The above workshops was a great success with students and lectures learning about evolution, epidemiology and the management of HIV molecular data.
After long days of intense concetration, the workshop participants enjoyed socializing in the evening at Durban bars and restaurants ..."

The Wellcomme Trust (#061238 )

The Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine

The Southern Africa Medical Research Council

The Flanders Bilateral Proposal

Workshop snapshops

Workshop Program:

Day 1 (2 of July):

Overview of HIV-1 Molecular Research in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
Fundamentals of molecular evolution.
Alignment algorithms.
Database homology searching. Practical computer session.

Day 2 (3 of July):

Methods for construction of phylogenetic trees - I and II Theoretical Lecture.
Construction and interpretation of phylogenetic trees - I. Practical computer session using Bioedit, Clustal, Phylip.

Day 3 (4 of July):

Modeling nucleotide substitution.
Phylogenetic signal and phylogenetic noise in sequence data.
An integrated LINUX environment for molecular phylogenetic analyses. Theoretical and practical session.

Day 4 (5 of July):

Construction and interpretation of phylogenetic trees - II. Maximum likelihood applications.
Construction and interpretation of phylogenetic trees - III. Practical computer session using PAUP*, Dambe, Mega
Detecting recombination in viral sequences. Theoretical and Pratical lecture.
The Different HIV-1 subype epidemic potential in Brazil and South Africa.

Day 5: (HIV/AIDS Treatment management workshop)

HIV drug resistance testing in clinical practice. Basic concepts and practical applications
Drug Resistance Genotyping and Therapeutic Monitoring in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
HIV/AIDS treatment in South Africa
HIV/AIDS treatment and drug resistance in Brazil, a successful case using antiretroviral generic drugs.
Rega V6.0: a clinically-relevant drug resistance interpretation system

Day 6: (11 of July) - The Seminar on Phylogenetics Evolution and HIV (at MRC Cape Town)

Phylogenetics, Past, Present and Future
Host, Pathogen and Selection
Advanced Methods for Phylogenetic Analysis (Maximum Likelihood, Bayesian, Split Decomposition methods)
Detecting Positive Selection in HIV-1 Molecular Sequences
Molecular Epidemiology of HIV-1 in South Africa: 1984 to 2003

Workshop Lectures:

Participants:

Sabri Al-Sanabani, PhD
Helba Bredell
Stefano Butto, PhD
Anna Badimo
Karen Bishop
Polan Chetty
M. Aslam Sathar, PhD
Edana Cassol
Mia Coetzer
Paul Chelule, PhD
Ryan Doherty
Siva Danaviah
T. Jonathan Edwards
Jandre Grobler
Natalie Graham
Andre Loxton
Alasdair Leslie
Busisiwe Monosi
Maria Paximadis, PhD
Roger Phili
Taryn Page
Oubaas Pretorius, PhD
Maria Jose Ruiz Alvarez, PhD
Chris Seebregts, PhD
Venessa Timmelman