ASM2023 Perth conference

The West Australian branch of the Australian Society of Microbiology was honoured to host the ASM2023 Scientific meeting in Perth. We were thrilled to welcome 430 delegates to the Perth Convention Centre who attended the ASM meeting and two satellite meetings, EduCon and Clinicon.

There was a great feeling of community throughout the meeting with members catching up with old friends and colleagues to share the latest in scientific endeavour over the past year. The LOC trialled numerous new initiatives that were well received by delegates. Our opening event was an introductory speech by Prof. Barry Marshall (Nobel Laureate) on his career and the importance of entrepreneurship in our field. This was followed by a career presentation by Dr Andrea McWhorter (University of Adelaide) who was the inaugural winner of the ASM Industry Engagement Award. This was followed by Prof. Dena Lyras (Monash University) as the ASM Distinguished Orator for 2023. We heard from six plenary speakers who gave exemplary speeches about their work in discovering the principles of how microbes work both in human health and climate change. They were Assoc. Prof. Yunn-Hwen Gan (National University of Singapore), Prof. Ross Fitzgerald (University of Edinburgh), Prof. Dominic Dwyer (Institute for Clinical Pathology and Medical Research), Prof. Shiranee Sriskandan (Imperial College), Dr Jennifer Pett-Ridge (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and Prof. Neil Gow (University of Exeter). Our other major speaker at this conference was Prof. Julian Rood (Monash University) who was honoured by our society as the Rubbo Orator 2023. Their talks was inspirational to the audiences and led to really interesting question times.

Two other highlights of the conference were the presentations by the winners of the ASM Jim Pittard (early career) and Fenner Awards (mid-career) awards. Each recipient highlighted their careers and talked about their next steps. These were Dr Laurence Luu (University of Technology Sydney), Dr Shakeel Mowlaboccus (Murdoch University), Dr Joanne Kenyon (Queensland University of Technology) and Dr Josh Ramsay (Curtin University). The Nancy Millis Student presentations were also fantastic and truly showed off the next generation of scientists and where their aspirational pathways may lead. We heard from Sally Byers (Vic.), Genevieve Kerr (Qld), Nicolie McCluskey (WA), Anja Zelmer (SA and NT) and Catherine Dawson (NSW and NT). We thank Dr Su Chen Li (WA) who was the mastermind behind the organisation of the Nancy Millis breakfast and lunch-time activities.

Monday and Tuesday nights were the poster presentations nights. This year the LOC had managed to identify sponsors for four new poster prizes bringing the total to six poster prizes. We thank our sponsors, Journal of Medical Microbiology and Microbiology Journal, from our sister society, Society of General Microbiology (UK), for sponsoring posters for both the Early Career and student categories. The LOC organised 80 judges to circulate on both nights to undertake the judging by matching the judges to the themes of each poster, thus ensuring a dynamic interaction for the judges and presenters. This was really well received with the sessions going over time to the enjoyment of many as this became a vibrant networking event. Our winners were Dr Estefania Giannini (Macquarie University), Anna Faber (University of Western Australia), Dr Melinda Ashcroft (Monash University). The ASM Student poster prize was awarded to Joe Hooton (University of Western Australia) and the ASM early career researcher poster prize went to Dr Heema Vyas (University of Sydney). Another inaugural event was the new Federation of European Microbiology Societies (FEMS) Oral Early Career Research Award worth 500€. We thank Dr Rochelle Soo for organising this prestigious prize. This was an extraordinary effort by the state branches of the Society to identify a local ECR candidate to represent their branch. These nominees attended a session at the conference where they were judged for their presentations. This led to an amazing tie with two awards being presented to Dr Maclean Kohlmeier (University of Western Australia) and Dr Emily Gulliver (Hudson Institute of Medical Research).

We also thank the 74 symposium speakers and the chairs of the sessions in the program. You kept to time and performed all the judging activities. I can attest that the LOC were incredibly grateful for your swift responses and willingness to volunteer with these activities! You are the local heroes that truly electrified the audience, who remained engaged to the closing bell of the conference. We must admit we were so surprised that in some sessions the rooms were a bit over-crowded and the food ran out! It was an amazing feeling to see such enthusiasm across all levels of the membership for this conference.

The LOC also thank every West Australian delegate who attended the conference. We realise it is not often that you are able to travel interstate, especially after the last 2 years of lockdown. We were so amazed at the support you showed us – a quarter of the delegation was from WA and were proudly in front of audiences in almost every session illustrating the dynamic community we have grown here since the meeting was last in town in 2016. We are indebted to our home-grown institutes: the Marshall Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Training, the Wesfarmers Centre for Vaccines and Infectious Diseases (Telethon Kids Institute) and the Institute of Respiratory Health for their donations for the coffee cart! It was really a catalyst for great convivial conversations with our industry sponsors. We are indebted to Tourism Perth, Beckman Coulter (bronze sponsor), Biomerieux and Pfizer (workshop sponsors) and our exhibitors for their support.

Lastly, this was the second ASM meeting with two satellite meetings, Clinicon and EduCon. Both of these meetings ran smoothly and the LOC was delighted to work with the chairs of these meetings (Dr Megan Lloyd, Dr Thiru Vanniasinkam, Belinda McEwan and Mikayka Kingston) for the benefit of our members who are specialists in these areas. We also thank Gemma, Kara and Atit at ASN events who organised everything behind the scenes and helped with the registration and the behind-the-scenes tweaking throughout the conference.

Farewell until next time! We look forward to seeing you again in the next 5 years!

From the LOC chair, Assoc. Prof. Charlene Kahler, and the Perth LOC: Dr Mitali Sarkar Tyson, Dr Nicole Bzdyl, Dr Tim Barnett, Dr Deirdre Gleeson, Dr Josh Ramsay and Prof. Geoff Coombs.