Some 1500 laboratory professionals, clinicians, program managers, epidemiologists, researchers, students, and policy makers will convene in Cape Town, South Africa from December 1-7, 2012 for the First International Conference of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM).

The objective of this meeting is to convene healthcare professionals and policy makers from Africa and around the world to present and discuss the latest developments and initiatives for strengthening national laboratory health systems and networks, diagnostics, and their impact on healthcare delivery and disease surveillance.
Click here for the conference Program-at-a-Glance.

The conference will address a wide range of laboratory-related subject areas with particular emphasis on: translation of laboratory knowledge, practices, and technologies into clinical care; the interface of laboratory with medical science; laboratory-based epidemiology; and laboratory investigations and evidence-based effectiveness in real world settings.

Specifically, the conference will provide a forum for:

• Problem-solving to improve access to, regulation of, and policy regarding quality point of care laboratory diagnostics for quality health care in Africa and elsewhere.
• Discussing ways to strengthen laboratory-based surveillance, biosafety, and biosecurity, and to reduce antimicrobial resistance.
• Prioritizing and enhancing mobilization and utilization of resources for local capacity.
• Operationalizing laboratory research to meet evolving disease needs in the 21st century.
• Exchanging knowledge, skills, and best practices to improve access to high quality laboratory services.
• Sharing experiences on establishing functional laboratory networks for disease-specific needs and for multiple diseases.

ASLM2012 will feature plenary sessions, oral and poster presentations, and symposia. The official languages of the meeting are English, French, and Portuguese and simultaneous translation will be available during the plenary sessions.

At the completion of this meeting, participants should be able to:

1. Assess their individual efforts in light of the most current knowledge and information about laboratory medicine.
2. Incorporate best practices emerging from laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological research and implementation science into their professional endeavours.
3. Translate the latest laboratory and clinical evidence into making progress towards the advancement of professional laboratory medicine practice, science, systems, and networks in Africa.

Economic growth and stability, standard of living, social inclusion, development of human capital, critical infrastructure, urbanization, industrialization, human rights and jobs for the nation are among the ideals and realities faced by most nations and governments in our current world. However, the benefits of economic welfare are frequently accompanied by increased pressure on the natural environment and resources. High levels and volumes of pollution and waste are released into marine ecosystems, especially near urban areas. Taking into account that 21 of the 33 mega cities of the world are located on coastlines, high volume discharges present a major threat to the health and well-being of marine life, including cetacean species.

A conference on “Structural Biology for the Bioeconomy: Infectious Diseases and Biotechnology” will be held at the University of Cape Town from 1 December to 2012 to 4 December 2012. The conference will immediately precede the annual conference of the Microscopy Society of Southern Africa (4-7 December 2012) and will be held in the same venue on the University of Cape Town campus.  The conference website is http://www.sbbe.co.za and more about the organisers can be found here: http://www.sbbe.co.za/structural-biology-conference-organisers/

One of the objectives of SASM as a society is to further knowledge in the various microbiological disciplines and all areas in which it may be applied and to create channels of communication between members who share common interests. As you probably would have observed after an extended lag phase there has been a constant stream of communication from SASM via email recently, but did you know that on the social media front our presence has just started an exponential growth phase?. This new communication phenotype of SASM, who recently evolved into a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, has however not reached any viral proportions by far. The diagnosis: it appears our community's quorum sensing response has not kicked in yet and the potential cascade signalling networks is still somewhat feedback inhibited.

On a more serious note, we would like to encourage all SASM members (and potential future members) to join SASM's social media network on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. We intend to enrich the basic weekly email communications with cross-platform postings of news, informative articles and society-related events. Enthusiastic participation and interaction by members is vital for this endeavour to be successful. Our fundamental aim is to create the space where microbiologists from different fields all over South Africa can get involved in sharing news, discussions, idea/knowledge-sharing or just create general awareness of the microbiology landscape in South Africa. So comment on our blog posts, like us on Facebook, tweet and retweet us on Twitter or circle us on Google+.

Don't forget, registered paid-up members also have access to the SASM forum where more discussions and news can be found. As an example, a valuable resource on the SASM forum is the Available Positions section where we will host advertisements of available job offers relevant to our members.