Tres_crays

Well it's been awhile since our last blog entry as things have been moving very fast here! We arrived in London on the 13/9 just in time for Marts to attend the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Centenary Conference. The conference went for 3 days and was aimed at addressing the millenium development goals and how (and if) we could reach them. There was also a big emphasis on how we can start combatting malaria more effectively now using the tools we already have. The conference had a very strong clinical element which was a nice change from the usual scientific meetings. Leanne was also attending the conference so it was great to see her! We had a dinner cruise on the Thames and they opened the Tower Bridge for us as we cruised under sipping champagne! I caught up with some friends (Matt, Kate and Simon for those who are interested!) after the conference dinner which ended with me being locked out of our crappy hotel (which is another story altogether and I'm sure Leanne would be happy to vent!). But all's well that ends well, or so the saying goes. The 15th and 16th were my only free days in London and I did the usual touristy things to get my fix of the city. We had dinner in Soho which is always bustling with people, and I walked for hours taking in all the sights... Buckingham Palace, St James Park, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, the Tate Modern (where I was excited to see a lot of works by Leger, Dad), Tower Bridge... hmmmm, a LOT of walking! The Malaria Vaccines for the World conference began on the 17th which Leanne and I also attended. This was a great conference, just the right amount of people and some really interesting talks with more science and some immunology of course! Bill and June, you will be pleased to know that I had dinner with Michael Good, so you can now make the connection with him. I also met a number of top Aussie malaria people, so the conference was really great for networking. The conference ended on the 19th and I said my goodbyes to Ange and Leanne as on the 20th I had to leave at 5:30am for Paris to begin my post doc tour! My post doc tour was unreal! I had no idea what to expect! For those of you who don't know, a post doc tour involves visiting a number of labs that you might like to work for (4 in my case). You then visit the labs, meet the people, give a seminar and hope that they like you enough to offer you a position! I visited labs at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (where I caught up with Alli and Nick... and Antoine), the Morettas in Genova (Italy), Jurg Tschopp in Lausanne (Switzerland), and Adrian Hayday in London. As you can imagine, it was extremely tiring as I visited all of these places in the space of about 10 days! But the experience was amazing! I was looked after so well, taken out for fancy dinners, put up in loevly hotels, bought chocolates and cakes on arrival... I felt like someone famous! All of my seminars were a great success and people were so impressed with my work! I got some great questions (all of which I could answer without a hitch) and it was just so great to feel like the work that I had done during my PhD was actually really interesting to other people! The people at the Pasteur Institute invited me back the following week and they organised a special lunch for me where they flew up some scientists from the South of France who wanted to meet me! Wow, it was just crazy! So I've managed to foster some good collaborations for the future between some good overseas labs and Louis' lab in Melbourne which is great. And, it seems that it is not a matter of waiting for a post doc offer, but deciding which one to take! The decision certainly won't be easy but it's very nice to have that luxury!