Vertical Transmission

Welcome to this issue of Microbiology Australia, which focuses on the ongoing challenges of the AIDS pandemic and is timed to coincide with the 20th International AIDS Conference to be held this year in Melbourne in July. A wide range of topics from leaders in the field have been brought together by the guest editors Johnson Mak and Stephen Kent, and so this issue presents a current state-of-play with regards the challenges and progress in combating this deadly disease.

Also in this issue is a report from Kat Holt and Mike Manefield, the two ASM representatives at the recent Science Meets Parliament 2014, which is coordinated and run each year by Science and Technology Australia. Their insights gained from interactions with lobbyists, reporters and parliamentarians makes for fascinating reading. They also report briefly on the Respect Research campaign, in part designed to garner support for maintaining public funding in all areas of research in the upcoming May Federal budget. As you are reading this, we may already know the answer to this request! Here’s hoping that sense prevails.

Since my last Vertical Transmission, the Society has continued to be pro-active in the public policy arena on issues that are relevant to our members. We have publicly recorded our support of the recent NHMRC findings that concluded there was no benefit of homeopathic treatment of health issues and have called on the PM to revisit a pre-election pledge to remove payment of the immunisation bonus to parents who are conscientious objectors. You can find the relevant documents in the News section of the ASM web pages. I encourage all of our members to become actively engaged in public debate of matters where our expert opinion should be considered.

A reminder to all ASM members that the Council proposal for changes to the society constitution is still open for feedback and comment. The proposed changes, which spell out the role for the society Divisions, will be taken to the AGM in Melbourne in July and we hope that as many members as possible will contribute to developing the detail. You can find a full description of the changes and the rationale behind them in documents posted on the website - you have until the end of May 2014 to respond.

The annual meeting is nearly upon us but it’s still not too late to register for what is shaping up to be a very exciting meeting. Lots of new initiatives are on offer; EduCon, an interactive satellite workshop run over the week-end before the meeting and focusing on enquiry-oriented learning, a public lecture by Sir Gus Nossal on the topic of vaccination, a live taping of an episode of ‘This Week in Virology’ or TWiV (http://www.twiv.tv) by Vincent Racaniello (Columbia University), the launch of the student-focused Nancy Millis Student Mentoring Program and an array of exceptional international and national Plenary and Symposium speakers (http://asmmeeting.theasm.org.au/). See you all in Melbourne in July!