ISHAM NEWS! (23-12-2011)

Dear , Payment of your ISHAM membership 2012 is now due for those who paid until 2011. Please note that without payment the advantages of your membership, such as ISHAM News, access to Medical Mycology, reduced congress fee, chances to obtain travel grants, etcetera, will stop. Payment is easy through the ISHAM webshop, see shop.isham.org. A discount of 5 $ is granted for those who pay their membership for three years in advance.

Registration and abstract submission for the ISHAM Congress in Berlin, 11-15 June, are now open see here. Note that ISHAM members are offered an enormous reduction of the registration fee, see below:

A number of travel grants for Young ISHAM (YISHAM) members will be available to fund attendance of the Berlin meeting. Preference will be given to those attending the conference who have limited access to other resources. Applications should include: (a) the completed application form , (b) a full cv. Travel grants will be for no more than US$ 1500 (or an equivalent in €) depending on geographical location of the awardee. Deadline for receipt of applications will be March 1st, 2012; decisions can be expected around March 30. Send your application by e-mail to: Dr Peter Donnelly (ISHAM General Secretary) at p.donnelly@usa.net.

For the period 2012-2015 a new Council can be elected. We have received many nominations (See here): You may also vote for the congress venue 2015: Melbourne or New Delhi, on the same page here. Electronic voting is possible only once, using your ISHAM member number. For those who for some reason are unable to vote in time, special provisions will be made until three hours before the General Assembly in Berlin.

Several interesting sessions were held at the TIMM Congress in Valencia, last October. Medical writer Jenny Bryan reports here on how rising numbers of immunosuppressed patients at risk of invasive fungal disease (IFD), as well as increasing yeast and mould resistance to antifungal agents, are making it more important than ever to develop better ways to prevent and treat infections.

A new electronic edition (version 3.1) of the Atlas of Clinical Fungi, with about 530 species, is now available here. Advantage of the CD-ROM version is that it allows fast and very comfortable search through the entire Atlas text. The glossary terms are integrated in the text, and all items and references are strongly linked. English or Chinese languages appear by clicking on the respective flags.

With sadness ISHAM announces that her honorary member Prof Dr Friedrich Staib recently has died at the age of 86. An obituary of this great mycologist can be found here.

We wish you all a pleasant and peaceful Christmas period!