ISAR's President’s APRIL 2024 MESSAGE
I hope this message finds everyone enjoying spring and starting to get excited about ICAR 2024. In the meantime, I am pleased to announce the results of the election for President-elect, Treasurer, and the two open Board of Directors seats. Our next President-elect is Dr. David Durantel, from the Center for Infectiology Research of Lyon (CIRI) and INSERM, in France. David has been a long-time member of ISAR and is currently serving as the Chair of the Finance Committee. He also is a previous ISAR Prusoff award winner, bestowed on him in 2021. Given his long history of organizing successful meetings in France and elsewhere, I have no doubts that David will be an outstanding President-elect and subsequent President.
Our heartfelt thanks go out to Dr. Brian Gowen, from Utah State University, our long-time treasurer, for agreeing to continue doing the fantastic job that he does (and fortunately, we didn’t need to do toooo much arm twisting!). Brian has been a long-standing member of ISAR and continues to serve on many committees including poster judging, the Chu awards, and as one of the judges for the PechaKucha contest in addition to his treasurer duties.
Our newest board members are Dr. Rhonda Cardin from Pfizer, where she serves as Executive Director of Anti-Infectives, and Professor Cybele Garcia, from the University of Buenos Aires/IQUIBICEN and CONICET, Argentina. Both have been involved in serving on many committees for ISAR. Rhonda is also the current Chair of the WIS committee and has been a board member in the past.
All of our elected members are outstanding, and I am excited to be working with them on the Board of Directors in the coming years.
I also think it is important to note that the entire slate of candidates represented excellent candidates who are all very involved in ISAR. And if they think they are getting off the hook, they should think again! We hope they will agree to run again in the future.
As I already discussed in my last message, we have an exciting lineup of speakers and events, including our award winners, plenary, and invited speakers. This year’s program committee, led by our President-Elect Luis M. Schang, has selected a very diverse set of speakers - six different countries are represented, including the USA, UK, Singapore, China, Belgium, and of course, Australia. The speakers represent academia, industry, hospitals, and government, and are not only diverse in terms of their research focus, but also in their approaches, ranging from clinical research, medicinal chemistry, virology, vaccines, and small molecules. In addition, the program committee have recently selected a number of outstanding short talks from submitted abstracts - stay tuned for other exciting additions to the program. Finally, the PechaKucha contestants have also been selected and thus we will have some fun in addition to all of the wonderful science to be presented and discussed.
In closing, as we count down the last few days to ICAR 2024 in the beautiful city of Gold Coast, Australia, I look forward to seeing all of you – many old friends and, of course, also many new ones. It promises to be a fantastic meeting!
Regards,
Kathie Seley-Radtke
President, ISAR