Liz Harry was presented with the 2008 ASM Frank Fenner Award -

The purpose of this award is to recognise distinguished contributions in any area of Australian research in microbiology by scientists in a formative stage of their career. Liz applied earlier in the year, and the winner was announced at the ASM conference in July 08. The award consists of a bronze plaque, plus AU$1,000 which will be given at the ASM Awards Ceremony at the ASM Annual Scientific Meeting. The recipient is required to then make an oral presentation of their submission for the Fenner Plenary Presentation at the following year's Annual Scientific Meeting - to facilitate this, the recipient will be entitled to complimentary full conference registration, daily lunches, return economy flights and up to 6 nights accommodation.

[by the way, Professor Frank Fenner's outstanding career as a scientist has been marked by two achievements of considerable magnitude, namely the eradication of smallpox, and the control of Australia’s rabbit plague. He also undertook significant studies into Malaria for the Armed forces in WW2, which had a significant impact on the success of the New Guinea campaign, and for which he was awarded an MBE i.e. he was almost as good as Liz!!].

CONGRATULATIONS LIZ !!!

Associate Prof Nick Smith was elected a Fellow of the Australian Society for Parasitology

Nick Smith was elected a Fellow of the Australian Society for Parasitology, which is according to the Society's Constitution awarded for "Distinguished parasitologists who by their influence or endeavour have promoted the advance of parasitology." The reason for Nick winning this award were his -

[1] excellent research on free radicals and antioxidants in innate immunity, stage differentiation in coccidian parasites and development of a vaccine against/ Eimeria/;

[2] brilliant supervision of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows;

[3] major role in the founding and development of IBID; and

[4] terrific leadership of the ARC/NHMRC Research Network for Parasitology, especially to improve career opportunities for young researchers.

CONGRATULATIONS NICK !!!

We have fencing specialist amongst us - Sarah Osvath!!!

A relatively new member of IBID, Sarah Osvath joined the Whitchurch Group in April 2008. Sarah, despite her ever increasing age is very active in a couple of sports - this being hockey and fencing. We don`t hear much about the sport of fencing in Australia and usually get only a glimpse of the action during the Olympics even though `Fencing' is one of the few sports to have been competed in at all of the Olympics to date. Sarah retired from International Fencing competitions in 2001, having competed in 5 World Championships and three Commonwealths and the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, narrowly missing selection for the Sydney 2000 Olympics but still competes in all the Australian National competitions.

In June of this year, Sarah won the national circuit event of Womens epee in Adelaide which followed her 3rd place in the Melbourne event held in March`08. Sarah is currently ranked Number 2 in Australia in Womens epee, with Amber Parkinson the Number 1 ranked epeeist  currently fencing in Beijing at the Olympics. Sarah is hoping to gain her 10th NSW State Championship title in October this year and will put in a fierce effort to try and gain the Australian Championship title in early December. This title is currently held by amber Parkinson with Sarah having to be satisfied with the silver medal in 2007. So one should be ON guard  in labs on level 6 at all times!!!

Stephane Hemmerter has been shortlisted by the European Space Agency (ESA) to become an Astronaut!!!

Stephane applied two months ago with 9000 others very motivated European scientists/pilots. ESA selected around 800 candidates to pass the next stage and they are flying him to Hamburg this week to participate in some tests. At the end of the entire selection process they will select four people to become  members of the European Astronaut Corps. There has not been a recruitment campaign since 1992 so this is a rare opportunity to be at  the forefront of ESA’s human spaceflight programmes including future missions to the international space station, the moon and beyond.

We may have a first IBID astronaut!!!

IBID students win awards

Philippa Sharma won second prize in the ASP Student Awards for Poster + Oral Presentations for her paper entitled, "The identification of subtilisin-like serine prtoteases in Eimeria tenella".

Her prize is a 1 year subscription to the journal, Trends in Parasitology.

It's quite remarkable for an Honours student to win one of these awards. CONGRATULATIONS!!!

IBID attracts funding for research:

Professor John Ellis was awarded a 2008 UTS Partnership Grant ($49,768) for the project entitled: Comparative genomics of Neospora caninum and development of a vaccine discovery pipeline. This project is in partnership with Pfizer Animal Health

Sheila Donnelly, Mark Robinson, Ann Simpson, Bronwyn O'Brien, John Dalton (UTS) and Shane Grey and Stacy Walter (Garvan Instiute) won an award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund ($410,000) to study Parasites and Diabetes.

Congratulations to all!!!!