Good News

Andrea Parisi has been selected as a participant for Homeward Bound 4 – a 12-month leadership program for women in STEMM, which culminates in a three-week voyage to Antartica.

Danielle Ingle successfully applied for an ANU ECR Travel Award to attend the Society of Microbiology and Evolution satellite conference on Genome Evolution in Pathogen Transmission and Disease.

Emma Field was selected by the APRISE CRE Executive to undertake an Early Career Researcher Observership with the Communicable Disease Network Australia. Emma was also awarded an APRISE CRE internal grant ($25,000) for the ‘Adaption of the first few hundred protocol for infection disease events for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations.’

Conferences

Martyn Kirk attended a Field Epidemiology Training Program Roadmap meeting in Bellagio organised by the Task Force for Global Health, where they discussed modernising the FETP curriculum.

Danielle Ingle attended the Global Microbial Identifier meeting in Geneva, where they discussed the sharing of genomic and metadata going forward. She will also give two presentations at the Australian Society for Antimicrobials, presenting on “Rapid emergence of highly-resistant Salmonella enterica serovar 4,[5],12:i:- in Australia” and “Concurrent outbreaks of highly-resistant Shigella sonnei and Shigella flexneri in men who have sex with men, Melbourne Australia”.  

Implementation, Engagement and Outreach

Brett Lidbury had meetings at the Federal Parliament to advocate for the agenda for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Brett, with a colleague from the University of Melbourne and advocates from ME-Action Australia, discussed funding initiatives with a range of Labour, Coalition and Greens MPs and/or their representatives. The round of meetings also included discussions with the NHMRC-CEO on how to promote funding, and recognition of ME/CFS.

Publications

• Claudia C Dobler, Greg J Fox, Paul Douglas, Kerri A Viney, Faiz Ahmad Khan, Zelalem Temesgen, Ben J Marais. Screening for tuberculosis in migrants and visitors from high incidence settings: present and future perspectives. European Respiratory Journal. 2018. Published ahead of print 2018,  doi:10.1183/13993003.00591-2018
   
• Alene KA, Viney K, Yi H, McBryde ES, Yang K, Bai L, Gray DJ, Xu Z, Clements ACA. Comparison of the validity of smear and culture conversion as a prognostic marker of treatment outcome in patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis from Hunan Chest Hospital, China and Gondar University Hospital, Ethiopia. PLoS One. 2018. 13(5): e0197880. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197880. Featured on PLOS Tuberculosis Channel (Editor’s pick) in May 2018: https://channels.plos.org/tuberculosis