Methicillin-resistant Staph in animals: the conference

It's been a busy few months. I'll have some additional announcements (and long-overdue book reviews) coming up soon, but in the meantime, one of my projects is humming along and is to the point where I can provide some detailed information about it.

Those of you who follow American Society for Microbiology conference announcements (and who doesn't, right?) may have seen the announcement for this mouthful of a conference: the 2nd ASM-ESCMID Conference on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococci in Animals. The previous incarnation was in London, but this year it's coming stateside, so mark your calendars and make your reservations. The conference will run from September 8th through the 11th, and it's headed up by yours truly. (Scott Weese, lead organizer of the first conference, is also helping out, as are a number of others noted on the website).

So, what's on tap? Topics and confirmed speakers can be found here, with additional speakers chosen from the submitted abstracts (due June 17th). Funds are also available for student presentations. It was a wonderful conference in 2009, and we plan on doing even better this coming fall. I hope to see some of you there!

More like this

Tweet? (and not the internet kind). At the recent ASM meeting, I saw a poster presented by Mark Schroeder of Ohio Wesleyan University about the prevalence of methicillin-resistant staphylococci in wild song birds (the staphylococci include several potential pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus…
A little over a year ago I put a post up documenting research out of Canada which found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Canadian pigs. This had also been seen in Europe (with a lot of research coming out of the Netherlands). What I didn't note at the time was that we were…
After meeting Anton Zuiker a few days ago, I also managed to catch up with Brian Russell and Paul Jones, catching up on everything, but most importantly, shifting the organization of the 2nd Science Blogging Conference into a faster gear. The wiki needs only a few more tweaks (some of the links are…
Back in November, I blogged about one of our studies, examining methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Iowa meat products. In that post, I mentioned that it was one of two studies we'd finished on the subject. Well, today the second study is out in PLoS ONE (freely available to all…

I was attacked by MRSA, without any hospital contact; no wounds ( at area of infection), and no vector.
I had to have an IV for four days, with two antibiotics for 4 weeks!
Yikes!
Does a person get immunity from this by having it once?

By Richard W. Crews (not verified) on 25 Feb 2011 #permalink

Hello Tara, I really would appreciate an answer about acquired immunity. Does it happen?
I realize you're busy with the conference, but I think it would be a great service - beyond just to me - if you could get us educated. For example, I couldn't find any info about how long the bacteria can live in a neutral environment, such as on the floor, or on a t-shirt in the hamper.\
Thanks.
I am a long-time reader - layman with interests.

By Richard W. Crews (not verified) on 14 Mar 2011 #permalink