On behalf of the Australian Society for Antimicrobials I would like to invite you to the Society's 10th Annual Scientific Meeting "Antimicrobials 2009" to be held at the Hilton on the Park, Melbourne on Thursday 26th - Saturday 28th February 2009.
I am please to announce Marc Bonten from the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands and Stephan Harbarth from the University Hospital of Geneva in Switzerland will be participating at the meeting. Marc will be presenting the plenary "Controlling Resistance in the ICU" while Stephan will be presenting the plenary "Public Campaigns to Decrease Antimicrobial Misuse and Resistance: Do they Work?" Both speakers will also be participating in the symposium sessions.
The Australian plenary speaker for "Antimicrobials 2009" is Sharon Lewin from Monash Univeristy. Sharon will be presenting the plenary "AIDS in Australia".
The programme's symposia although covering many different aspects on antimicrobials and sessions include "How to Use Antibiotics Better", "Vaccine and Antibiotic Use", "Antimicrobial Drug Development", "Staph Stuph" and "Molecular Resistance Detection in the Routine Laboratory". In addition we have two workshops on Saturday afternoon titled "Rapid Detection of MROs" and the "Bugs and Drugs Pharmacy Workshop".
Three proffered papers and two poster sessions are also planned for the meeting. Once again ASA is offering travel awards to financial members of the Society who are submitting abstracts for the meeting. These awards include return economy airfare, registration and accommodation. In addition the ASA/bioMérieux travel award will be awarded during the meeting to an abstract dealing with the identification of bacterial resistance to antimicrobials in a routine clinical setting.
To promote discussion and interaction between delegates and the invited speakers the meeting's registration includes lunches, morning and afternoon teas and admission to the Welcome Reception.
As this is the Society's tenth annual meeting a "surprise guest" has been invited to attend the conference dinner on the Friday evening.
I am confident that you will find the meeting's programme both scientifically stimulating and informative and we look forward to meeting you in Melbourne.
Graeme Nimmo
President ASA