Invitation 

Join us in Melbourne in December for our Annual Scientific Meeting

We would like to welcome you back to Melbourne for our 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia, which will be held in from Wednesday 1st to Friday 3rd December.

You’ll note from the timing that the meeting has grown over the years. This is a sign not only of the health of the Council, but also our commitment to avoid parallel sessions and retain the benefits of cross-discipline exposure and engagement.

As always, the Scientific Program will be headlined by our named lectureships: Professor David Harrison from Emory University as our RD Wright Lecturer, Professor David Celermajer from the University of Sydney as the Austin E Doyle Lecturer and Dr Anthony Ashton, also from the University of Sydney as the Colin I Johnston Lecturer for 2010.

There will be a special Workshop on Wednesday 1st December focusing on ambulatory blood pressure. This builds on the success of the Council’s ambulatory blood pressure study, led by Geoff Head that resulted in the landmark BMJ publication and ongoing development of guidelines in collaboration with the NHF. The ASM gets underway on the Wednesday afternoon – as always with opportunities to hear the latest research, especially from our student and early postdoctoral members. There are special sessions and a range of valuable awards including the Student and Early Career Investigator Awards that will allow one of our young stars to travel to Britain for the BHS Meeting and another to the AHA High Blood Pressure Research Council Conference in 2011. Travel grants are also available to support younger members to attend the Annual Scientific Meeting.

The Australian Nurses Cardiovascular Hypertension Association (ANCHA) meeting will once again be incorporated into the HBPRCA ASM, and we are very much looking forward to that interaction.

A very special event is also planned for Tuesday December 1 – a Festschrift and dinner to honour Professor Judy Whitworth and you’ll find details in this brochure.

As in 2010, our Conference Dinner involves water and small creatures, but this time we’ll be under rather than on water and the creatures will be scaled rather than furry and swimming as we enjoy a wonderful evening at the Melbourne Aquarium on the Thursday night.

Again we are pleased to say that abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2010 Meeting will, subject to approval by authors, will be eligible for publication in Hypertension.

To share in all of these opportunities, and to take advantage of the lower members' ASM registration costs, we'd especially encourage students to join the HBPRCA for free as Student Members (www.hbprca.com.au).

Melbourne 2010 will be another terrific meeting for the HBPRCA.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Stephen Harrap          Geoff Head          Kate Denton
President                    Secretary            Program Secretary