With widespread environmental changes and population migrations, numerous infectious diseases have emerged and re-emerged in different areas of the world. While medically diverse, Emergent / Re-Emergent Tropical Diseases (ETDs) share features that allow them to persist under conditions of poverty, resulting in clustering and overlap of different diseases. Many of these diseases are zoonotic and transmitted to man directly from animals or via vectors, and disease distribution reflects the dynamics of human populations, host reservoirs and pathogen vectors. In addition to many others, the so called "exotic" agents are a continuous major threat to public health systems due to limited experience in case management and lack of appropriate resources.

In this Gordon Research Conference we will focus on two main aspects regarding the ETDs: the first one "Molecular and Cell Biology of Host-Pathogen Interactions" will be devoted to basic research involving different aspects of invertebrate / vertebrate host interaction, such as invasion, homing/latency and transmission. The second segment will focus on "Strategies for Disease Control" as they relate to possible testing in the field.

The intent is to discuss in an integrated manner interventions at the level of both invertebrate and vertebrate hosts. We believe that a scientific program that promotes discussions from basic to applied questions of pathogen-host interaction and disease control will be very informative and productive. We also hope that parallel discussions involving invertebrate and vertebrate hosts will prove fruitful in generating new insights on fundamental questions as well as open new directions towards applications and at the same time, create a multidisciplinary framework for scientists interested in ETDs.