The focus was on opportunities for students and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) at the 5th Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference, 18-20 February 2015. This annual conference is co-hosted by the VIIN and the Queensland based Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre. It regularly boasts a great line up of international and Australian speakers from various infection and immunity disciplines.

Complimentary Student Registrations

The Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference aims to encourage student attendance and participation at the meeting. To assist research groups sending their students to the conference, 50 Complimentary Student Registrations were offered at the 2015 conference. To be eligible students needed to present either a talk or poster at the conference and their lab head also needed to be registered at the conference. It was great to see over 70 students attending the conference!

Student Poster Prize Winners

Congratulations to the two best student poster presenters whose posters were selected from over 40 student posters presented over two nights at the conference:

Joshua Newson, University of Melbourne
Characterisation of a family of novel glycosyltransferase effectors from Salmonella

Julie Nguyen, Monash University
Characterisation of a mitochondrial complex widely conserved in fungi, but absent from humans, using a model human fungal pathogen

Each winner receives a prize of $300 provided by the Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference. Thank you very much to the prize judges who put in a great effort across the two nights of judging!

VIIN/ELISAkit Career Development Awards

Drs Sidonia Eckle and Joel Ma (pictured below), both from University of Melbourne, received VIIN/ELISAkit Career Development Awards in late 2014. The purpose of these awards was to assist ECRs who had contributed to their discipline further their careers by providing them with registration at the Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference.

VIIN Young Investigator Award

As the 2014 VIIN Young Investigator Award Winner, Tan Nguyen from Walter and Eliza Hall Institute presented his talk 'Sidt2 is required for innate immunity to extracellular double stranded RNA' during the plenary session. This award is conferred annually on the best oral presenter at the VIIN Young Investigator Symposium and gives them the opportunity to present their work to the large, international audience attending the Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference.

Early Career Researcher Lunch

The inaugural ECR Lunch (pictured below) was held this year at the Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference. Organised by a subcommittee of ECRs, the lunch offered students and ECRs the opportunity to mix with the international and local guest speakers in an informal setting. The lunch was well received, with attendees discussing a range of topics of interest to young Australian researchers such as international postdoctoral experiences and women in science. Following this success, similar ECR events are planned for future Lorne Infection and Immunity Conferences.

Upcoming Student and ECR Events

Keep an eye out for details of the upcoming 2015 VIIN Careers Evening in May at the Woodward Conference Centre in Carlton. These evenings are a great opportunity for postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers to hear about alternative career paths.