Dear all,
April hosted many successful conferences that connected Infectious diseases experts from across the world. I am extremely proud to say that the NCIC had a magnificent presence at these events, from leading seminars to poster presentations. This month's newsletter will highlight some of these moments!
ESCMID Global Congress 2024 Highlights
The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) is the Premier European Infectious Diseases conference attended by over 20,000 people with an average of 5,000 scientific abstracts submitted.
Professor Slavin is an executive member of the ECCMID Immunocompromised Host Study Group and Prof Thursky is an executive member of the AMS study group.
This year the congress was held in Barcelona, Spain and was attended by 10 NCIC current and past staff members.
The presented work include -
PhD candidate Victoria Hall, who presented results from the InFLUencer trial, which showed that two doses of adjuvanted flu vaccine in patients with haematological malignancy have more side effects for no benefit, compared to two standard doses of flu vaccine.
Dr Ben Teh, on strategies for vaccination uptake in immunocompromised people.
Dr Zoe Neoh, on success in rare mould infections.
Dr Anna Khanina, who led the meet-the-expert session on invasive fungal infection management.
ESCMID presentation images of Dr Neoh, Dr Khanina, Prof Slavin, Group image of NCIC colleagues, Dr Teh
ESCMID Late Breakers
Interferon-α (IFN-α) nasal spray reduces the incidence of COVID-19 in cancer patients
A/Prof Michelle Yong presenting Late breaker CSMART Trial at ESCMID
A/Prof Michelle Yong presented the outcomes of the NCIC developed IFN-a nasal spray at this years ECCMID, Barcelona, Spain. The late breaker abstract detailed the outcomes of the CSMART trial (Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04534725, ACTRN12620000843954); a world first randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled study performed in 433 adults with solid tumor or haematological malignancy in 2020-2023.
Participants were randomly given IFN-α or saline (placebo) nasal spray and asked to take one spray per nostril daily for 3 months. Participants who developed symptoms self-collected nasal swabs for PCR testing and performed a RAT and sent them to the Peter Mac National Centre for Infections in Cancer (NCIC) study team.
COVID infections happened significantly less in patients who used the IFN-a spray compared to those who used the placebo.
“This is a very exciting and significant innovation. IFN-α nasal spray can provide an additional measure to vaccination and monoclonal antibodies in preventing COVID-19 in cancer patients and was well tolerated with few side effects. There is lots of further research to be done but this adds to all our other preventative measures especially in immunecompromised.”
- A/ Prof Michelle Yong
ICHS 2024 Biennial Symposium Highlights
A/Prof Michelle Yong announced Council Vice President
Prof Roy Chemaly (ICHS President) and A/Prof Michelle Yong
A/Prof Michelle Yong, ICHS Member at large was announced as the Council Vice President at the ICHS AGM, during ICHS 2024, Antalya Turkey. Michelle will join President Prof Roy Chemaly as Vice President during the 2026 ICHS, Houston, Texas. She will then hold office of President Elect in 2028 and finally will be President ICHS in 2030.
The International Immunocompromised Host Society (ICHS) is the premier, international, multidisciplinary forum for scientific and clinical interchange to improve understanding and management of the immunocompromised host. Their mission is to advance the understanding of the interactions between host defense and microbial agents to improve prevention and management of human disease in patients with compromised immune function. The ICHS biennial symposium brings together leaders in the field such as Prof Roy Chemaly, Prof Murat Akova, Prof Dimitrous Kontoyiannis, Prof Steven Pergam, Prof Camille Cotton, Prof Jay Fischman and many others with clinicians and scientists in a small intimate setting, emphasising on trainee mentoring and career development.
The ICHS symposium is held every 2 years in the country of origin of the Council President of that year. Prof Monica Slavin was the first Australian President of the ICHS council with the ICSH Symposium held virtually in 2021. We are very excited to announce that we will hold the first in person ICHS in Australia in 2030 with A/Prof Michelle Yong as President.
We strongly encourage you to engage the society and start planning for #ICHS2030! Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. Follow ICHS on their website, X (formly twitter) and LinkedIn.
Dr Abby Douglas was awarded best poster at ICHS 2024!
Announced at ICHS 2024 was best abstract winner Dr Abby Douglas: Pre-neutropenic fever in high-risk haematology patients: A novel target for antimicrobial stewardship. Congratulations Abby!
Dr Abby Douglas presenting at ICHS 2024, Antalya
Staff profile: This month we are featuring the remarkable, accomplished Dr Victoria (Tori) Hall!
Tori has just departed our shores to take up a position as Transplant Infectious Diseases physician, Clinician-investigator at University of Toronto / University Health Network in Toronto, Canada.
Dr Ben Teh, Dr Tori Hall, Prof Monica Slavin
Tori completed her Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, (MBBS, Hons) in 2011 at the University of Melbourne. Completing her Advanced training in FRACP, Infectious Diseases) 2019 at the Alfred Hospital she then went on to complete a Masters of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, James Cook University, Townsville (MPHTM) in 2020 before completing a 12 month Clinical Transplant and Oncology Infectious Diseases fellowship at the University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada during COVID. During this 12 month stint Tori's research career really took off with 36 publications since 2020 including in NEJM, Nature Comms, Nature Immunol and Lancet regional health-Western pacific.
Tori returned to Australia in 2022 to undertake a PhD at the NCIC University of Melbourne, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Doherty Institute “Defining host immune response and prevention strategies for viral respiratory tract infections in patients with hematological malignancy” Supervisors: A/Prof Benjamin Teh, Professor Monica Slavin, Dr Michelle Yong, Professor Katherine Kedzierska with an impressive 8 publications and 10 presentations at national and international conferences and counting from her PhD work.
Tori has also received numerous awards and accolades during her NCIC PhD including a Victorian COVID-19 Vaccinees Collection (VC2) COVID-19 Research Seed Funding award, a Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Foundation Grant, a Dr Francisco Marty Transplant Infectious Disease Journal Editorial Fellowship, an American Transplant Congress Infectious Disease Community of Practice Travel Grant and The Rosie Lew Peter Mac Foundation Postgraduate Award.
We wish Tori all the best in her future career which we are sure will continue on its meteoric trajectory. We look forward to many years of fruitful collaborations with her in Canada!
We are hiring for two positions!
Kind regards,
Prof Monica Slavin, MBBS, MD, FRACP, FAAHMS
Head, Department Infectious Disease, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Professor of Infection in Cancer and Transplantation, University of Melbourne Department of Infectious Diseases and the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology
Director, National Centre for Infections in Cancer and Transplantation