Symposium Information

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies the importance of bat-borne diseases. In recent years, several bat-borne zoonotic diseases have emerged that cause substantial morbidity and mortality in humans. Also included on this list are MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, Ebola and Marburg viruses, Hendra and Nipah viruses, and rabies virus and other lyssaviruses. To date, more than a thousand viruses have been isolated from or detected in bats. Considering that about 1,400 species of bats have been identified, they are likely underappreciated as sources of zoonotic viruses. Moreover, bats are also afflicted by infectious diseases, including rabies virus, Lloviu filovirus, Tacaribe virus and the fungus Geomyces destructans that causes white nose syndrome and which has killed more than 6 million bats in North America. Despite the importance of bats as reservoirs of infectious agents, little is known about their biology or immunology, which presents a significant obstacle for understanding the ecology and spillover risks of infectious agents hosted by bats. The 3rd International Symposium on Infectious Diseases of Bats will provide an interactive forum for biomedical scientists, physicians, veterinarians and bat biologists to share research and to foster collaborations to study infectious diseases of bats.

The symposium will be held in the Lory Student Center on the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. As with prior meetings, we will have oral and poster presentations by students and faculty/staff, plus open discussions at the end of each day. Break-out rooms will be available for groups that are interested in formulating collaborative projects for future studies. We look forward to hosting the symposium and hearing about the current state of bat infectious disease research.

Advisory Committee

Lin-fa Wang, Duke-National University of Singapore

Susanna Lau, University of Hong Kong

Raina Plowright, University of Montana

Zhengli Shi, Wuhan Institute of Virology

Vincent Munster, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID

Martin Schwemmle, University of Freiburg

Patrick Woo, University of Hong Kong

Peng Zhou, Wuhan Institute of Virology

Richard Yanagihara, University of Hawaii

Jonathan Epstein, EcoHealth Alliance

Local Organizing Committee