DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): The American Society for Virology (ASV) is applying for a multi-year block grant to provide partial support for pre-doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows and U.S. under-graduate teachers of virology to participate in the annual ASV scientific meetings in 2016-2021. The ASV 2016 meeting will be held June 18-22nd on the Virginia Tech University campus. Our aim is to provide partial support for junior virologists, with particular attention to participation by women and underrepresented minority virologists, with the goal of benefiting U.S. research in the future. Pre- and post-doctoral awards will be $500, and for teachers $1,000, for a total of $30,000 per year. Members of the ASV Graduate Student/Post-doctoral Travel Award Committee and the Education & Career Development Committee evaluate the applications that include for students and fellows an abstract of their work for presentation in workshops or poster sessions, and for teachers an essay explaining the benefit of ASV meeting attendance to their teaching and counseling. In addition to its members, ASV announces the availability of travel awards to ~100 U.S. minority schools and institutions. Post-meeting evaluations are obtained by questionnaires required of awardees that focus on how they benefited from participation. The ASV meeting continues to provide an opportunity for U.S. junior scientists to meet and interact directly with recognized virologists as well as to learn in symposia, workshops, poster sessions, and special satellite symposia the most recent developments in virus research areas, including the viruses of humans, animals, plants, invertebrates and prokaryotes. The ASV is one of the last general virology meetings with this breath of offerings, enhancing directly opportunities for crossfertilization of ideas and technologies across the whole of the virus world. This scope spans topics such as virus genetics, replication, structure, pathogenesis, evolution and emergence, disease control and virus-host interactions. Work presented at the ASV general meetings has applications in fields such as infectious diseases, immunology, cancer, hematology, cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology and pediatrics. The ASV feels that supporting virology research in this way positively impacts U.S. efforts in public health and the research needed to overcome viral diseases.