Toby K. Eisenstein - Böcker

Toby K. Eisenstein Symposium Committee Chairperson Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19140 This symposium is the thirteenth biennial clinical microbiology program sponsored by the Eastern Pennsylvania Branch of the American Society for Microbiology in cooperation with the Philadelphia area medical schools and the Bureau of Laboratories of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. This year a generous contribution from Merck, Sharp and Dohme has helped to make the program a reality. The subject matter for this symposium represents an attractive spectrum of medical, biological and molecular approaches to the practical solution of a public health prob1em--name1y, prevention of infection with the hepatitis B virus. The symposium may be unique in that it focuses on a product which was first marketed less than three months ago, but included in the program are presen­ tations on two new approaches to hepatitis B vaccine production which may replace the one which is newly unveiled. The rapidity of progress in our present era of biological research is indeed astonishing.

This volume represents the proceedings of the 2nd annual symposium on the Brain Immune Axis and Substance Abuse held at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, FL in June 1994. The history of productive studies concerning the relationship between the nervous and the immune systems is relatively recent. Studies on the effects of drugs of abuse on the immune system and on infections among individuals who abuse drugs are also of recent vintage. Only in the last decade have investigators begun to describe the role of drugs of abuse and their endogenous counterparts on the brain-immune axis. Thus, the involvement of the neuroendocrine system in the interactions of drugs of abuse and the immune system has only recently been appreciated. In addition, it has been recognized that direct neural inputs impact immune function. Given the complexity of these interactions, characterization of biologically significant phenomena and elucidation of their mechanisms of action often requires a multidisciplinary approach. This meeting, on which the chapters in this book are based, brought together scientists from an array of biomedical disciplines whose work is focused on the effects of drugs of abuse on the neuro-endocrine immune axis. The meeting was unique in focusing on the brain-immune axis from the viewpoint of drugs of abuse rather than either immunity itself or the brain itself. Presentations addressed the direct effects of drugs of abuse on various components of the immune system, as well as those mediated indirectly by the central nervous system and the neuroendocrine system.

This volume represents the Proceedings of the Symposium on AIDS, Drugs of Abuse and the Neuroimmune Axis. This meeting was held in San Diego, California, November 11-13, 1995. As in the previous symposia in this series, productive studies were reviewed concerning the relationship between the nervous and the immune systems in regards to the relationship between drugs of abuse and infections, especially infections by the immunode­ ficiency virus that causes AIDS. In recent years, various investigators have begun to describe the role of illicit drugs and their endogenous counterparts on the brain-immune axis. It is widely recognized that the neuroendocrine system is intimately involved in the effects and manifestations of the interactions of drugs of abuse and the immune system. The meeting on which the chapters in this book are based brought together many biological scientists from an array of various scientific disciplines whose work is focused on the effects of drugs of abuse on the neuroendocrine-immune axis and its relationships to immunodeficiency caused by the AIDS virus. As in the past, the symposium was unique in focusing on the . brain-immune axis from the viewpoint of drugs of abuse rather than from the viewpoint of immunity or the brain itself.

The subject matter of this volume was the basis for a confer­ ence held in Philadelphia in June, 1981, and is an important one in the contemporary area of how the host interacts with micro­ organisms. In conception, it grew out of a graduate course entitled, "The Infectious Process," which has been taught in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Temple University School of Medicine during the past twelve years. This course has explored the broad areas of mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis and host resistance by in-depth consideration of selected models of experimental infection and immunity, as well as the clinical literature. It is noteworthy that there is no adequate text for this material, as the subject matter naturally crosses a wide spectrum of traditional disciplinary lines, encompassing topics as diverse as the mechanisms of action of bacterial toxins, the role of complement and antibody in phagocytosis, and the importance of cross-reacting bacterial polysaccharide antigens in vaccine development. A major portion of the course has always considered "cellular immunity" as it applies to host defenses to intracellular pathogens. It is in this area that the necessity for amalgamation of information from different disciplines is most evident, for one must be intimately concerned with the interactions between the microbe and the phagocyte, both before and after specific immune recognition.