Challenged by the sudden appearance of AIDS as a major public health crisis, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), together with The Rockefeller University, jointly sponsored the conference "Emerging Viruses: The Evolution of Viruses and Viral Diseases" held 1-3 May 1989 in Washington, DC. It was convened to consider the mechanisms of viral emergence [1] and possible strategies for anticipating, detecting, and preventing the emergence of new viral diseases in the future. To provide a broad perspective, participants comprised virologists, infectious disease specialists, theoretical biologists, historians, epidemiologists, ecologists, and molecular biologists (see below for program and participants). Theoretical Considerations The enormity of the problem was outlined in the keynote address by Lederberg, who said that humankind's only real competitors for dominion of the planet are viruses, which can serve as both parasites and genetic elements in their hosts. Not only do they have considerable genetic plasticity, enabling them to evolve in new directions, but their genetic and metabolic entanglements with cells uniquely position them to mediate subtle, cumulative evolutionary changes in their hosts as well. Their effects are not always so subtle, however; viruses also can decimate a population. The fact that natural selection in the long run favors mutualism offers only limited encouragement to the human race, as too many people might suffer as the result of viral mutation before an equilibrium could be reached. [2] According to May and Anderson [3, 4], coevolution of vi

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