This workshop will be held from 2-5 October 2022, at the "Île des Embiez", a French island in the Mediterranean Sea (https://www.lesilespaulricard.com/?lang=en).

Parasitic infections remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide; they kill millions annually and inflict debilitating injuries on additional millions. The vast majority of parasitic infections in humans and domestic animals can be attributed to protozoan pathogens, including those causing malaria, African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, or toxoplasmosis. Parasitism is found throughout the tree of life and parasitic organisms have become model systems for the study of biochemistry and molecular biology. They also represent valuable systems for integrated analyses of host-pathogen interplay.

The workshop will showcase the latest breakthroughs in host-parasite interactions at the cell, tissue and organism levels, including sessions on host manipulation and avoidance strategies, host immune responses  and pathogenesis, parasite cell biology, parasite molecular biology and signaling, parasite reservoirs and niches, vaccination and control strategies. The conference will cover multiple protozoan parasites  (Plasmodium, Toxoplasma, Cryptosporidium, Trypanosoma, Leishmania) and provide an outstanding opportunity to share cutting-edge science. We aim to promote interactions and discussions, especially with junior scientists. The meeting will include poster sessions and turbo talks, providing younger researchers the opportunity to present their work. It will represent a stimulating environment to exchange ideas and envisage novel approaches to deal with pathogenic parasites.

We are looking forward to meeting you at this workshop and hearing about your exciting science.

Olivier SILVIE and Nicolas BLANCHARD
Scientific organizers

Yoann MILLERIOUX
ParaFrap manager

Artur SCHERF, Mohamed-Ali HAKIMI, Frederic BRINGAUD, Maria MOTA, Dominique SOLDATI-FAVRE, Elena LEVASHINA
Co-Organizers

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS
Yasmine Belkaid, NIH, Bethesda, USA
John Boothroyd, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, USA
Michael Boshart, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
Hernando Del Portillo, Institut de Salut Global, Barcelona, Spain
Abdoulaye Djimde, Malaria Research and Training Center, Bankoumana, Mali
Luisa Figueiredo, Institute for Molecular Medicine, Lisbon, Portugal
Eva Frickel, University of Birmingham, UK
Freddy Frischknecht, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Mohamed-Ali Hakimi, Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Grenoble, France
Benoit Gamain, French National Institute of Blood Transfusion, Paris, France
Paul Kaye, University of York, UK
Taco Kooij, EMBO Young Investigator, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Maryse Lebrun, University of Montpellier, France
Elena Levashina, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany
Keith Matthews, University of Edinburgh, UK
Annette McLeod, University of Glasgow, UK
Maria Mota, Institute for Molecular Medicine, Lisbon, Portugal
Faith Osier, Imperial College London, UK
Silvia Portugal, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany
Isabel Roditi, University of Bern, Switzerland
David Sacks, NIH, Bethesda, USA
Dominique Soldati-Favre, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Boris Striepen, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
Rick L. Tarleton, University of Georgia, Athens, USA
Hedda Wardemann, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
Maria Yazdanbakhsh, Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands