HeIDI Annual Forum

The Herston Infectious Diseases Institute was delighted to host the HeIDI Annual Forum on Thursday 2 June 2022. This Forum was attended by 192 in-person and virtual participants, and was a great showcase of HeIDI activities and impact over the last year.

The event included presentations from key opinion leaders in health care and infectious diseases including Dr David Rosengren (A/COO, QH), Prof Sharon Lewin (Director, The Doherty Institute) and Prof Keith McNeil (A/Deputy DG & Chief Medical Officer, QH). The second session focused on Indigenous Health (Chaired by Prof Colleen Lau, UQ) and featured Prof James Ward (UQ), Mr Carl Francia (TPCH) and A/Prof Asha Bowen (Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, WA).

Concurrent sessions focused on progressing new products into the clinic and efforts to reshape healthcare provision. The Forum finished with presentations from CSIRO collaborators A/Prof Branwen Morgan and Dr Michelle Baker about their respective activities in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infectious Diseases Resilience, with Emeritus Professor Jeff Lipman completing the program with his story about progressing a hypothesis through a research program into global practice change.

Overall the Forum was a tremendous success with wonderful support from stakeholders within Metro North, UQ, QUT, QIMR Berghofer, CSIRO and industry. The overwhelming theme through the Forum was the power of collaboration and how partnership between clinical and scientific experts can lead to major improvements in patient care.

As a complementary event, the Genomics Symposium was held on Friday 3 June 2022. This symposium was attended by 95 participants, and was a showcase of various clinical genomics (diagnostic and infection control) and research genomics programs occurring in Queensland and Australia.

The Symposium was Chaired by Dr Patrick Harris (HeIDI Steering Committee, Staff Specialist Microbiologist Pathology Queensland) with key support provided by the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre (AID) and The Genomic Institute. The Symposium featured a Keynote presentation from Prof Tania Sorrell (Co-Director Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases) and from other key opinion leaders including Dr Mark Davies (University of Melbourne and The Doherty Institute), Dr Leah Roberts (University of Cambridge) and A/Prof Amy Jennison (Forensic and Scientific Services, QH).

Although the complexity of genomics data was clear to the uninitiated, the expertise in bioinformatics and interpretation was a feature of the Symposium highlighting the huge potential that broader implementation of genomics could have for improving infection control, prevention and treatment of severe infections.