Lorne conferences move offshore

Next year's Lorne conferences, the traditional summer high point for Australian life science researchers, will not be held at Lorne.

Erskine House, the traditional home of the conferences for more than 20 years, is being renovated. So the organisers of the three conferences -- Protein Structure and Function, Cancer and Genome -- have made the decision to move to a conference centre on Victoria's Phillip Island. The Lorne Proteomics Symposium, a spin-off of the Lorne Protein conference, is also slated to move to Phillip Island.

"In this difficult environment of change and building development, all of the Lorne meetings have decided to move east to Phillip Island and stay together rather than break up the historic association which has delivered so much to scientists for a couple of decades. This way the dates are maintained, the informal history of the meetings is enhanced and the good science continues to be shared," said Lorne Genome Conference president Prof Rohan Baker in a recent email alerting previous attendees of the change.

Baker told Australian Biotechnology News that the organisers had found out shortly after this year's conferences ended that Erskine House was to change hands and the new owners planned extensive renovations to the conference facilities, putting them out of commission until September 2005. While alternatives included using other facilities in Lorne, the conference dates would not have been retained.

Lorne 2005 conference dates:

Proteomics Symposium -- February 4-6 Protein Structure and Function -- February 6-10 Cancer -- February 10-13 Genome -- February 13-17