AAS E-Newsletter

November 2009

AAS Annual Scientific Meeting

The Annual Scientific meeting was held 13 – 16 October in St. Kilda, Melbourne.

We had an outstanding SCOLAR day with eminent speakers including such a Prof Wendy Jessup, Dr Rodney Dilley, Prof Peter Meikle, Dr Sophia Zoungas, Dr Esther Ooi and Prof Paul Komesaroff. This was a very informative education session for PhD students and early career scientists who wish to pursue a career in cardiovascular research. Many thanks to A/Prof Terri Allen, Dr Judy deHaan and A/Prof Jeffrey Cohn from the organising Committee for the SCOLAR Program.

The meeting itself saw outstanding presentations by the international speakers, Prof Willa Hsueh and Prof Borge Nordestgaard, as well as state of the art presentations by eminent national speakers including Prof Alex Bobik, Prof Shaun Jackson, Dr Grant Drummond, Prof Mark Febbraio Prof Anthony Keech , Dr James Shaw and Dr Esther Oi.

This year was also had two joint sessions with the International Society for Vascular Health (ISVH) lead by Prof James Cameron. These sessions covered state of the art developments in arterial compliance, coronary artery disease and vascular endothelial dysfunction as well as biomarkers of vascular disease.

Congratulations to Prof Lawrie Beilin who was the recipient of the Paul Nestel Lecture prize.

Congratulations also to the winners of the Young Investigator award, Kate Shearston, and best Oral Presentation Award, Saloni Gill. The Poster student prize went to Ryusuke Takechi and the Bio Link assay prize to Francis Geronimo.

All students gave outstanding presentations, either oral or at their posters and need to be congratulated on their achievements.

Last not least, a big thank you to all members of the local organising committee (A/Prof Terri Allen, Dr Alex Agrotis, Dr Judy deHaan, Prof Alicia Jenkins, Dr Andrzej Januszewski, Prof Richard O’Brien and Prof Karl-Heinz Peter) as well as to the team form Meetings First (Jennifer Seabrook, Angela Ritchie, Athina Patti).

I hope you enjoyed the meeting and found it informative and stimulating.

Best regards

Karin Jandeleit-Dahm, Chair organising committee

IAS Visiting Fellowship - Deadline

The deadline for the IAS Visiting Fellowship is fast approaching – December 15, 2009. This grant of $5,000-$8,000 will provide a wonderful opportunity for a young scientist to gain experience and knowledge is the field of atherosclerosis which then can be transferred to his or her home laboratory, hospital, and country, thus benefiting many people beyond just the young scientist. To apply, visit http://www.athero.org/ias-fellow.asp.

Australian Society for Medical Research

To download the October Newsletter, please click here.

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We are delighted to provide you with a copy of our newly released survey Planning the Health and Medical Research Workforce 2010-2019.

ASMR commissioned Dr Deborah Schofield, Associate Professor and Director of Research Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health (NRUDRH), School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney to conduct the study.

At the launch in Parliament House this morning, ASMR's President Dr Sarah Meachem said, “Australia needs a program which creates a self-sustaining and agile workforce able to meet head on, challenges in indigenous health, the overt diseases associated with the ageing population and the emerging covert health risks associated with climate change. The development, design and implementation of informed, innovative and visionary policy reform is essential to attract and retain our best human capital and to expand international partnerships and collaborations.”

Also speaking at the launch, Mr Mark Butler MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Health congratulated the Society on the report and referred to the importance of the study in highlighting the pressures of demographics and workforce retention faced by the sector.

Some key findings are:

- Australia has 15,200 PhD's within a health and medical research workforce of 23,400.

- 6,250 members of the health and medical research workforce will leave the sector by 2019, and of these, 4,000 will hold a PhD or equivalent.

- To maintain current PhD levels as a working population ratio to 2019, we must replace the 4,000 lost and add another 1,700 persons at a cost of around $810 million.

- Australia would need to expand 2.5 fold to be on par with knowledge-based workforces such as the European workforce. Australia would require about 5,700 additional health and medical research PhD graduates to be comparable with US levels, about 22,800 to be comparable with German levels and about 38,000 to be equivalent with Switzerland.

ASMR extends particular thanks to those organisations who have given their financial support for this study.

Catherine West

Snr. Executive Officer

Forthcoming Meetings

Asian Pacific Conference on Metabolic Syndrome

20 – 21 November 2009, Sofitel Melbourne on Collins