The mini-symposium goals are to highlight the latest analytical advances in proteomics, and give practical examples of the role proteomics play in the study of proteins and their potential use as disease markers.

The explosion of microarray data related to cancer has opened enormous opportunities to explore the genetic complexity of oncogenesis and to utilize this information to make more precise diagnoses, predictions of prognosis and to further individualize patient therapy. These themes will be explored in this symposium where microarray approaches for studying various types of human malignancies will be presented. Gene expression profiling of mouse models of human breast cancer will be discussed in terms of understanding molecular pathways of oncogenesis, model validation and integration of models into pre-clinical studies. Exciting new approaches to drug discovery are being developed using array technologies and the impact of these methods on pharmacology and clinical trials will be considered.

This mini-symposium focuses on the role of the immune system in the pathogenesis of central nervous system infections as well as the role of neural factors, neurotransmitters and neurohormones in susceptibility, course and severity of systemic infections.