School of Personalised Immunology 2015, 2-3 May in Canberra

The Centre of Personalised Immunology located in The John Curtin School of Medical Research, Canberra, is pleased to announce the upcoming inaugural School of Personalised Immunology.

This one and half day program is aimed at educating clinicians, GPs, registrars and medical students (with no prior knowledge assumed) on the latest technologies in phenotyping and genomic medicine for understanding and treating immune diseases.

The advent of genomics is revolutionising our understanding of disease pathogenesis, and will bring within our grasp the possibility of diagnostics based on understanding the cause of disease, not just its end-organ manifestations. This possibility, which is rapidly becoming a reality, has the potential to allow individualisation of therapeutic intervention to each patient. The personalised medicine revolution is occurring now, and will impact greatly on the lives of every physician practising over the coming decades.

About the course: This course will start from the basics of molecular biology, and take participants through genetic techniques, the application of genomics, proof of genetic causation and the application of these approaches to the understanding and treatment of human disease, using lupus, primary antibody deficiency, atypical HUS and type 1 diabetes as examples. Lectures will be given by experts in the field of molecular biology, genomics and clinical immunology, with experience both in animal models and human disease. Participants will have the opportunity of meeting directly with the speakers and discussing their research in a one-on-one setting. For physician advanced trainees and early career scientists. It is an ideal opportunity to arrange doctoral studies in an exploding area of immunology, particular those planning to specialise in the fields of immunology, renal or rheumatology.

Participants will:

•       Understand the basics of genomics and genetic techniques

•       Be able to discuss the general principles of next generation genome sequencing; bioinformatic analysis of genome sequence data and its relationship to clinical sequencing

•       Will be able to compare and contrast different technologies for generating human cell lines and mouse models for medical research and discuss examples of where they have been used successfully.

•       Present phenotyping strategies for linking genes to human disease

•       Understand how targeted therapies work in personalised medicine

Cost: Registration is $100 GST inclusive. ^*Dinner is $50 GST inclusive

*A school dinner will be held on Saturday 2^nd May from 7-9pm at Monster Kitchen, Hotel-Hotel for participants. Our guest speaker is Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb. Places for dinner are limited so please book.

You will need to arrange transport and accommodation. For those attending the Immunopathology Training Course in Sydney immediately prior, it is likely that car-pooling can be arranged.

Course Convenor:  A/Prof David Fulcher      

Enquiries:         Dr Edward Bertram