On behalf of the Australian Society for Antimicrobials I would like to invite you to the Society's 12^th Annual Scientific Meeting "Antimicrobials 2011" to be held at the Hilton on the Park, Melbourne on Thursday 24^th - Saturday 26^th February 2011.

I am pleased to announce Fred Tenover from Cepheid in the United States of America and Rafael Canton from the University Hospital Ramon y Cajal Madrid, Spain will be participating at the meeting. Fred will be presenting the plenary "USA300 - What does the Genome Tell Us?" while Rafael will be presenting the plenary "Antibiotic Resistance Genes from the Environment".

The Australian plenary speaker for "Antimicrobials 2011" is John Turnidge from SA Pathology. John will be presenting the plenary "The Things that Bug Me".

The programme's symposia cover many different aspects on antimicrobials and sessions include "ST93 Community MRSA: Australia's Answer to USA300", "Carbapenem Resistance in Gram-negatives: The Role of the Carbapenemases", "Multidrug Resistance in the Community", "Clostridium difficile", and "Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance Worldwide". In addition we have three workshops on Saturday afternoon titled "CLSI vs EUCAST and Beyond" and the "Changes and Controversies in Antimicrobial Use" and "Anti-Infectives Prophylaxis" pharmacy workshops. Three proffered papers and two poster sessions are also planned for the meeting.

Graeme Nimmo
President ASA