ImmuMon 2019 Wrap Up

ImmuMon Committee

On June 7 2019, the inaugural ImmuMon (Immunology at Monash) Symposium was held for early-mid career researchers (EMCR). The aim of this exciting event was to promote scientific exchange and link researchers and PhD students, working in the broader field of Immunology across the four major Immunology hubs of Monash University:
Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Central Clinical School, School of Clinical Sciences and Hudson Institute of Medical Research. It was a great success with over 135 attendees!

The event started with a welcome from Professor Stephen Jane and a Keynote presentation from Professor Colby Zaph who highlighted the importance of collaboration in research and not being afraid of screwing up. Across the day there were 21 oral presentations by EMCRs and 27 PhD poster presentations, where presenters shared their latest research, and highlighted the expertise and knowledge across Monash University.

The diversity of immunological research was further emphasised during a panel discussion involving representative lab heads from each campus (Professor Richard Kitching from SCS, Professor Dena Lyras from BDI, A/Prof Ashley Mansell from Hudson Institute and A/Prof Memno van Zelm from CCS). This also gave the EMCR’s the opportunity to seek career advice from the panel. The event concluded with some honest words of wisdom and strategic planning from Dr Kate Lawlor about her research journey to lab head.

Oral and poster presentations were judged by postdoc representatives, from each of the four participating hubs. Two oral presentation prizes were awarded for the CSL best oral to Patricia Illing (BDI) and StemCell Technologies oral runner up prize to Timothy Gottschalk (CCS). The Miltenyi Biotech poster tour prize was awarded to Lakshanie Wickramasinghe (CCS) and the Sapphire Bioscience best poster judges award to Tahnee Saunders (BDI).

We wish to thank all our sponsors, for without which, the day would not have been possible (all costs of the event were covered by sponsorship). Gold sponsors included CSL, StemCell Technologies, Miltenyi Biotech and Sapphire Biosciences whose sponsorship also kindly donated the prizes for the event. And our silver sponsors Australian Biosearch, BD Biosciences, BioRad and Life Technologies/ThermoFisher. The days networking and discussions didn’t stop there however, they continued with a large attendance and wind down at the College Lawn.

For a wrap of images of the day please follow the link to the ImmuMon2019 website https://immumon.wixsite.com/2019 and follow our twitter handle @ImmuMon.

We are very excited to announce that ImmuMon 2020 will be hosted on Friday the 12th of June by the Centre of Inflammatory Diseases/Hudson Institute located at the Monash Health Translation Precinct (MHTP), a collaborative initiative of Monash Health, Monash University, and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research.

Jacqueline Flynn - Centre for Inflammatory Diseases, SCS
On behalf of the ImmuMon Committee