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February 2007 E-Newsletter of the
Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists
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Welcome
to the February issue of the ASCEPT newsletter. We congratulate the winner of
the ASCEPT best presentation by a postdoctoral fellow at the BPS 2006
Scientific Meeting and we say farewell to two eminent scientists. The 2007
Australian Medicines Handbook is now available at reduced prices for ASCEPT
members. Finally, this issue includes information on the upcoming joint
SEAWP-ASCEPT meeting in Adelaide, December 2007 and the Premier’s Award for
Medical Research. If any
would like to contribute any items to eNews, please send it along to Meetings
First for consideration. |
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AUSTRALIAN MEDICINES HANDBOOK ASCEPT Members can save up to $77 when they buy AHM, the independent
medicines reference preferred by Australian health professionals. Australian
Medicines Handbook has become the preferred independent, evidence-based
medicines reference for Australian health professionals. The
print version of our 2006 edition went to a second printing less than six
months after its release – and still sold out in record time. AMH has
tens of thousands of users throughout the health-case system, including
pharmacies, medical practices, hospitals, aged care facilities, universities
(including medicine, pharmacy and nursing facilities) and a wide range of
health professionals with an interest in the Quality Use of Medicines. Our
independence provides assurance in an uncertain world. AMH has no
advertising, sponsorship or editorial input from drug manufacturers or any
other commercial organisations. Our
editorial staff, reviewers and Editorial Advisory Board members are all
Australia-based pharmacists, medical practitioners, scientists, researchers
and academics. AMH
includes information on drug classes, as well as individual drug monographs
containing new/revised evidence and comparative data covering indications,
dosage information, formulations, adverse effects, practice points, special
populations, etc. The appendices include a substantial drug interactions
guide. AMH is a joint project of the Royal Australian College of General
Practitioners (RACGP), the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) and the
Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists
(ASCEPT). Please
visit www.amh.net.au
or email amh@amh.net.au
to order. |
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BRITISH PHARMACOLOGICAL SOCIETY 2006 ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING
The title of her presentation was “The Phytocannabinoid,
Cannabidiol behaves as a CB_2 receptor inverse agonist” (Authors: Adèle
Thomas, Ruth A. Ross, Roger G. Pertwee). The work for this abstract was
carried out at the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, where Dr Thomas
received her PhD in 2005. Dr Adele
Thomas is currently at the University of Edinburgh, where she has been for the
last 3 months. |
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ALAN MAC DIARMID AND GARETH ROBERTSThe
Royal Society of NZ has just announced that Nobel Laureate Professor Alan
MacDiarmid has died.
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PROFESSOR ALAN L. A. BOURA 80TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
Alan L. A. Boura was born
London, 1st April 1927 and educated at the University of London (BSc, PhD,
DSc). He worked in various positions in England including Head of the
Pharmacology Department, Reckitt & Colman Research Laboratories and
Principal Scientist and Head of the Pharmacology Department, Wellcome
Research Laboratories. Alan L.A. Boura came to Australia to take up the
position On
Sunday 1 April 2007, there will be birthday celebrations for Alan at Tanilba
Bay. All friends of Alan are welcome to attend. If you would like to attend,
you must RSVP to Jean via email (jolley@hunterlink.net.au), no
later than 1 March 2007. |
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COMMONWEALTH HEALTH MINISTER'S AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN HEALTH AND
MEDICAL RESEARCH A call
for Nominations for the 2007 Commonwealth Health Minister's Award for
Excellence in Health and Medical Research was advertised in 'The
Australian' Higher Education Supplement on Wednesday, 14 February 2007
and will also be made publicly available through the NHMRC web site at http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/.
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PREMIER'S AWARD FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH
2007 This Award recognises the contribution made by early stage
researchers and is an initiative of the Victorian Government and The
Australian Society for Medical Research. Applications are sought from PhD students and recently
completed PhD graduates whose research is or has been undertaken in a
Victorian research institution. Applicant's research may be in any
field of health or medical research including public health, basic, applied
or clinical research and health-related technology research. The Award program provides $40,000 in prize money: $16,000
for the winner and $8,000 each for three commended applicants. In conjunction with
the Premier's Award for Medical Research, the $30,000 Jack and Robert Smorgon
Families Award will be presented to the research institute supporting the
work of the 2007 Premier's Award for Medical Research winner. Application forms and additional information please click here. APPLICATIONS
CLOSE MARCH 13, 2007 |
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SCIENCE MEETS PARLIAMENT Science
meets Parliament 2007 is on Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th of March. As per
last year, societies will nominate their own representatives. This way
Societies are in a better position to ensure the calibre of representation
and also to provide an excellent professional development opportunity for
future society/association leaders. This
year Dr Sab Ventura and Associate Professor Kathie Knights will be attending.
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Royal Society of New Zealand Fellowship Nominations 2007: Call
for Nominations Nominations for Fellowship are requested for the 2007 election. Please actively seek nominees in all areas of science and technology and consider candidates in universities, Crown Research Institutes, other government or industry-based research institutions and the private sector. Fellows are requested to give active attention to nominating scientists and technologists at the appropriate stage in their careers and also to redressing the historical imbalance between male and female Fellows by seeking to nominate excellent women scientists. Currently 8.1% of Royal Society of New Zealand Fellows are women. However, Council is focused on increasing the number of nominations of appropriately qualified women scientists. In 2006 there were 87
nominations with 10 Fellows elected. The 2006 Fellows' Annual General
Meeting agreed that up to 10 Fellows be elected in 2007. Nominations received in 2007
remain valid for five years from the year of nomination. They then lapse and
cannot be renewed for a period of three years. Please click here for the
nomination form. Closing date for receipt of Fellowship nominations is FRIDAY,
13 APRIL 2007. All nominations will be acknowledged. Companion Nominations The Royal Society of New Zealand is also seeking nominations for
Companions. The Companions'
nomination form is available from the website. Closing date for receipt of nominations for Companions is FRIDAY,
27 APRIL 2007. |
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JOINT SEAWP – ASCEPT MEETING 2007Report to ASCEPT Council – November 2006
Overview The meeting will be
held at the Adelaide Hilton Hotel from Monday December 4 to Thursday December
6, 2007. The meeting will run in parallel with the Annual Scientific Meeting
of the HBPRCA on December 6 and 7. Two joint symposia with the HBPRCA are
scheduled, and the HBPRCA will fund a ‘joint’ plenary lecture (given by
Professor Ian Frazer). Please note, we
recommend you make an accommodation booking now, as there will most likely
be a Cricket Test in Adelaide at the same time. Contact the Secretariat to
reserve a room at the Hilton Hotel ($185/night) or check with your travel
agent. Scientific
Programme The theme of the
meeting is ‘drug and chemical safety’.
This theme will be interwoven throughout the various symposia, although
individual symposia will clearly be broader in scope. Professor WE Evans,
probably the foremost international authority in the field of
pharmacogenomics, has agreed to deliver the opening plenary lecture on
‘Personalised Medicine’. There will be four other plenary lectures; two SEAWP
lectures given by speakers from the region (Professor Sam Chan (Taiwan) and
Professor Masao Endoh (Japan)), the BPS lecture, and the Rand Medal lecture. The scientific program
is almost complete. The following symposia have been finalised:
Pharmacogenetics and genomics; Enabling technologies; Drug metabolism and
transport; NICNAS symposium on the toxicology of nanomaterials; NSAIDs;
Herbal medicines; Cannabinoids; Neuropharmacology (focussing on NMDA
receptors); Oxidative stress (joint with HBPRCA). There will also be an
additional joint symposium with the HBPRCA, a Therapeutic Drug Monitoring
workshop. Most symposia will include a speaker from the SEAWP region,
consistent with the regional nature of the meeting. Regional symposium
speakers identified to date include Sang-goo Shin (Korea), Yuichi Sugiyama
(Japan), Masao Mishina (Japan), Masanobu Kano (Japan), Jun Kanno (Japan) and
Jianping Liu (China). In addition, we have been fortunate in attracting
several US and UK speakers to participate in symposia thanks to specific
sponsorship support and includes: Jeff Aronson (Oxford), Geoff Tucker (UK),
Eric Jonson (Scripps) and Mary Relling (Memphis). The programme also includes
other ‘traditional’ ASCEPT sessions: the Johnson & Johnson Young
Investigators symposium, the ASCEPT Oral Prize, and about five oral sessions. Sponsorship ASCEPT has made a
significant financial commitment to the meeting, which to date is largely
matched by major sponsorship and commitments for trade exhibit. Additional
sponsorship options are still being pursued. Colleagues in Japan are
currently trying to raise sponsorship to support attendance by young
investigators (post-docs, PhD students) from the region. We hope that funds
will be made available to provide travel assistance for 15 to 20
participants. Promotion The meeting will be
promoted extensively in Australasia and in the region in the first quarter of
2007. However, the success of the meeting will be largely dependent on the
participation of the ASCEPT membership. More information
will be available later in 2007. |
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ASCEPT symposium: Glutamate in the Vineyards, July
8-10, 2007 An International Conference on
the Neuropharmacology of Glutamate. The conference will be held at the Hunter
Valley Resort in the picturesque Hunter Valley, North of Sydney, immediately prior to the 2007 IBRO
Meeting in Melbourne. The provisional program includes sessions on:
Glutamate Transporters, Metabotropic Receptors, Glutamate Metabolism,
Learning and Memory, Glutamate and Schizophrenia, Glutamate and Disease. The
program will include talks by invited speakers as well as submitted talks and
posters.
For more information please click here. |
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FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES Please
click here for a list of meetings that we think may be of interest
to our members. These are displayed on the ASCEPT website. ASCEPT Meetings Joint SEAWP:
ASCEPT Meeting 2007, 3-6 December 2007, Adelaide ASCEPT symposium: Glutamate in the
Vineyards, July 8-10, 2007 Australian Cancer
Network Council Meeting, Camperdown Sydney, 16 August 2007 Generic Medicines Australia, Rydges
Jamison, Sydney, 15 - 17 May 2007 IBRO World Congress of Neuroscience, Melbourne, 12-17
July 2007 |
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NEWS FROM OTHER ORGANISATIONS Please
click on the relevant links for any news from other organisations we thought
our ASCEPT members might be interested in. Australasian
Biotechnology February 2007 E-news INNOVIC’s Next
Big Thing Award 2007, applications close Friday 2 March 2007 IUPHAR newsletter
"Pharmacology International", December 2006 Minutes of the
Australian Cancer Network Annual Council Meeting, 13 December 2006 RACP - Private Health Insurance
Reform - Development of Broader Health Cover Framework Risk Assessment Summer School (RASS). Applications close
30 April 2007 FASTS News
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Comment
on water announcement -
Media release on
Labor's science and maths announcement -
Prime
Minister's Prizes for Science - 2007 Nominations Now Open, Close Friday 27
April 2007 -
Science meets
Parliament topics and arrangements Royal Society of New Zealand, Alerts
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INFORMATION FROM PREVIOUS ISSUESPlease click here for more news, jobs and information that have appeared in past issues
of the ASCEPT newsletter that are now displayed on our ASCEPT website. |
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Attention all
members: We have a number of copies of abstract books
from the joint APSA-ASCEPT Annual Scientific Meeting in Melbourne 2005. If you
would like a copy please email Athina Patti at Meetings First. |
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The next E-News will be sent
out on Thursday 15 March 2007. If there is information you would like to
include, please email it to athina@meetingsfirst.com.au by Monday 5 March 2007.
ASCEPT Newsletter Editor
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Please do not hesitate to
contact Meetings First, our ASCEPT Secretariat, if you have any
queries: Angela, Athina and Jennifer Phone +61
3 9739 7697 Fax +61
3 9739 7076 Email ascept@meetingsfirst.com.au
Web www.ascept.org |
