Meeting report of the Mosquito Kolymbari Meeting 2013

On 15–19 July 2013 the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Orthodox Academy of Crete, in Kolymbari, Chania, Greece, hosted the 6th conference on the Molecular and Population Biology of Mosquitoes and Other Disease Vectors. These vectors transmit serious parasitic and viral diseases, the most devastating of which are malaria and dengue, which together cause over 300 million cases, kill over one million people every year, and threaten half of the world’s population. This conference series was initiated in 2003 soon after completion of the genome sequencing of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, the major malaria vector in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to create a forum for dissemination of novel and unpublished scientific data toward molecular and functional genomic analyses. Since that initial event, the meeting is repeated every two years and is now established as one of the most important meetings and a great tradition in the field. It brings together vector biologists focusing on a wide spectrum of topics from basic biology to disease transmission and control. The principal theme of the current meeting was integrating data originating from basic biological research towards disease control. In addition to EMBO, the other major funder was the Wellcome Trust. Both EMBO and Wellcome Trust funds mainly supported participants from disease endemic and medium to low income countries through travel awards. This was the fifth time EMBO funded the conference (only the 2011 event was not funded by EMBO) and the first time for the Wellcome Trust. The European Infrastructure Project INFRAVEC, Pathogens and Global Health, and Imperial College London also sponsored the meeting in diverse ways. The Scientific Organizing Committee consisted of experts in the field from across the globe and was chaired by George Christophides. The main organizers of this event were, apart from the Chair of the OC, Anthony A. James of the University of California Irvine, John Vontas of the University of Crete and Michael Povelones. The OC selected 150 presentations from over 260 submitted abstracts to make a scientific programme covering nine different subject areas spanning most aspects of vector biology in which molecular and population research has had a big impact in recent years, while the concluding session emphasized examples of innovation and translation (Fig. 1). The meeting was opened by a plenary speaker and each session was introduced by thematic keynote speakers. Apart from the many presentations and the keynote speakers, a new feature of this meeting compared to previous in the series were sessions of 5-minute turbo talks during which presenters revealed the main messages of their posters. Abstracts for all presented material are provided in this special edition of Pathogens & Global Health. The purpose of this report is to provide some highlights of work presented at the meeting. The keynote speaker who kicked-off the meeting, Kevin Baird from Eijkman-Oxford Clinical Research Unit in Jakarta, discussed the epidemiology and global health threat of Plasmodium vivax. He made the argument that the widespread assumption that vivax malaria is less pernicious than Plasmodium falciparum malaria is inaccurate. Approximately 2.8 billion people live in areas at risk of infection by P. vivax. Its epidemiology is complicated by the fact that the dormant hypnozoite liver stage is practically undetected and does not respond to treatment with blood stage antimalarials. The use of primaquine in the antirelapse treatment of P. vivax malaria is compromised by its propensity to cause acute haemolytic anaemia in individuals with glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase deficiency. For further details, see the accompanying paper in this issue. Session 1 on Host/Pathogen Interactions and Immunity was introduced by Frank Jiggins, who presented his group9s exciting work on investigating the genetic basis of disease susceptibility and transmission in the mosquito Aedes aegypti. They used a variety of techniques including genome sequencing and exome re-sequencing of natural as well as laboratory populations to dissect the mechanisms underlying their differences in susceptibility to pathogens. The presentation sparked lively discussions about the effectiveness of new technologies in discovering disease