On behalf of the Australian Society for Antimicrobials I would like to invite you to the Society's 13^th Annual Scientific Meeting "Antimicrobials 2012" to be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Brisbane on Thursday 23^rd - Saturday 25^th February 2012.

I am pleased to announce Robert Skov from the Statens Serum Institute in Denmark and Alex van Belkum from bioMérieux in France will be participating at the meeting. Robert will be presenting the plenary "Community MRSA: A European Perspective" while Alex will be presenting the plenary "Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing".

The Australian plenary speaker for "Antimicrobials 2012" is Lindsay Grayson from Austin Health. Lindsay will be presenting the plenary "Back to the Future: Antibiotics are Dead, So How Can We Manage?"

The programme's symposia cover many different aspects on antimicrobials and sessions include "Emerging Resistance in the Tropics and Subtropics": "Mycology Update", "Impact of Rapid Diagnosis on Clinical Outcomes (The Tail Wagging the Dog)", "Trends in Antibiotic Resistance (Australia and Beyond)", and, "Food and Farms as a Source of Antimicrobial Resistance". In addition we have three workshops on Saturday afternoon titled "MALDI-TOF and Beyond" and the "What and How Much to Give" and "The Rare and the New" pharmacy workshops. Three proffered papers and two poster sessions are also planned for the meeting. Once again ASA is offering travel awards to financial members of the Society who are submitting abstracts for the meeting. These awards include return economy airfare, registration and accommodation. In addition the ASA/bioMérieux travel award will be awarded during the meeting to an abstract dealing with the identification of antimicrobial resistance in a routine clinical setting.

To promote discussion and interaction between delegates and the invited speakers the meeting's registration includes lunches, morning and afternoon teas and admission to the Welcome and Industry Receptions. I am confident that you will find the meeting's programme both scientifically stimulating and informative and we look forward to meeting you in Brisbane.

Graeme Nimmo
President ASA