About this Meeting

Objectives
The Anti-helminthics VI meeting will focus on helminth parasite infections of human, animals and plants, including flatworms, tapeworms, filaria and roundworm. The meeting recognizes the importance of experimental models that includes C. elegans and other emerging models. Another key objective of the meeting is to train and encourage graduate students and post-docs in these fields of research, so we have made an extra effort to invite and introduce early researchers to the program. The meeting will review recent progress in:
-anti-helminthic and nematicide drug development and medicinal chemistry
-modes of action of anti-helmintic and nematicidal drugs
-the emergence and mechanisms of drug resistance
-anti-helminthic vaccine development
-public health efforts to control helminth infections of humans
-emerging related discoveries

Anti-helminthics VI will be held at the Old Mill, Toronto, CANADA (https://www.oldmilltoronto.com), Sept 23-26, 2024.

Organizing Committee
Peter Roy (University of Toronto), Jonathan Marchant (Medical College of Wisconsin), Raffi Aroian (University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School) and Richard Martin (Iowa State University)

Scientific Advisory Committee

Sabine Specht, Stephen Doyle, Jenny Keiser, Lindy Holden-Dye, Roz Laing, Angela Mousley, P’ng Loke

The BASICS:

  1. The meeting is in person.
  2. Registration and Abstract submission will open March 1, 2024.
  3. Abstracts and Registration for the symposium before Aug 16th, 2024: The Delegate Fee Is $500 (US) For Everyone Except Students, it is $350 (US). Find abstract submission and registration information under the page labelled: PROGRAM, ABSTRACTS & REGISTRATION.
  4. Travel Awards for Grad Students: Please send applications to rjmartin@iastate.edu with supporting letter from major professor with travel costs. The meeting organizers will dole out any surplus dollars according to need to those trainees who apply.
  5. Abstracts due before Aug 16th
  6. Travel Awards for Grad Students: Please send applications to rjmartin@iastate.edu with supporting letter from major professor with travel costs. The meeting organizers will dole out any surplus dollars according to need to those trainees who apply.

Our objectives this symposium are like previous meetings in Massachusetts (2022), Santa Monica (2020), Indian Rocks Beach (2018), San Diego (2016), San Francisco (2014), and Philadelphia (2012)

Our biannual meetings on anthelmintics are driven by scientific and medical needs that arise from the now established ambitious use of anthelmintics for controlling and human helminth infections with Mass Drug Administration (MDA) and similar extensive use in animals. This continuous use has led to concerns about the development of resistance and the need for novel compounds to overcome resistance. There is a real concern about climate change with evidence that the distribution of helminth infections is changing geographically.  We recognize that there is real medical need to develop new anthelmintics and vaccines but to do so successfully requires new technology, new science and training of graduates and post-docs.

In addition to our invited speakers, we are seeking to include presentations from the community on: New Research Approaches; Schistosomes and Flatworms; Filaria and Heartworms; Soil-Transmitted Helminths in animals and humans; Plant parasitic nematodes, Drug and Vaccine Development; Anthelmintic Resistance.

Questions that we are seeking to answer:

  1. How can we drive the discovery and development of new and more effective anthelmintics and vaccines for the future?
  2. What new techniques and approaches can we use for our studies and for the detection of resistance?
  3. Can we find out more about how combinations of drugs could work together synergistically, and how vaccines and drugs could combine more effectively.

Goals:

  • We intend to promote training of graduate and post-doc researchers in multidisciplinary approaches required for anthelmintic drug and vaccine discovery and the design of sustainable control programs.
  • We want to stimulate communication between studies on nematocides, and medical and veterinary parasites and bring together academic and industrial scientists working to discover and develop novel anthelmintic drugs. There is consensus that novel anthelmintics will be needed if the goals of the London Declaration are to be met.  There is a need to improve the supply of drugs for control of schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminths, river blindness, and helminths of food animals.
  • Plant-parasitic nematodes are a major concern for producers of basic food crops including soya beans, potatoes, rice and wheat. We see overlapping interests between scientists working on chemicals for the control of plant nematodes and animal nematodes.
  • We recognize that commercial support and interests play a very big role in the success and delivery of anthelmintic therapy and so we are very pleased to welcome scientists from private companies to our meeting. Recent developments in private/public partnerships have allowed a synergism that has benefited science, medical health and commercial interests.