ASM NSW Branch award winner

Nathan Saul, a PhD student from Dr Dee Carter's lab, has been awarded the ASM NSW Branch award!

The ASM NSW Branch Award is awarded to a student member of the ASM on the basis of their abstract, a presentation summary and an oral presentation. The award offsets the travel and accommodation expenses to attend the ASM 2007 Annual Scientific Meeting & Exhibition in Adelaide.

Nathan received this award for his work on the epidemiology of Cryptococcus gattii, a fatal pathogen of people and animals. He investigated the case of a koala in New South Wales that presented with an unusually aggressive form of cryptococcosis. Using koalas as sentinels for disease, he traced back the infecting strain to a koala park in Western Australia, where he found a high presence of the pathogen colonising both the environment and the animals. In addition, through the use of various molecular techniques, he found higher diversity among strains in this koala park than had previously been seen throughout the entire country. This may have implications for disease manifestations and subsequent treatment, and may also indicate an ecological niche for the organism in these areas.

Nathan would like to thank the ASM NSW Branch for this award, and for providing the opportunity for research students to showcase their work.