Thanks for visiting! My name is Ian, a Post-Doctoral scientist heading the Emerging Virus Group (EVG) within the Queensland Paediatric Infectious Diseases (QPID) Laboratories, at the Sir Albert Sakzewski Virus Research Centre (SASVRC) and Clinical Medical Virology Centre in Brisbane, South-East Queensland, Australia - check out the SASVRC home page for more on the Centre.

Virology Down Under (VDU) was originally created on a little 486DX2/66 at home - then on a Gateway Pentium II (128Mb RAM and 6.4Gb HDD) on its 17" monitor, then a Dell Pentium III 1000MHz (128Mb RAM, 10Gb HDD) notebook and now on my Acer Pentium 4 3GHz (1Gb RAM, 120Gb + 40Gb HDD). The site was only a few pages to begin with, but has grown in a fairly ad hoc fashion. Because of this, the design "theme" had become a little hazy as I kept changing my mind on what looked good. However, I have decided to try and adhere to my latest style (new in 2004) until the entire site looks the same. Intentions are important! Being a generally nice guy, I do try to remember my roots and keep these pages viewable for all - but if I've failed then its up to you guys to let me know where (notes including the specific page address really help too!), why and what you'd like to see instead!

I do NOT see the pages on a Macintosh but on the whole they have been designed for Internet Explorer 5.0+ (currently using 6.0), running on a PC with true colours and at least 800x600 resolution..

I do appreciate any comments about how you recieve the pages because then I can try and spruce up the design accordingly.

Its my strong belief that this is a great medium for breaking down some of the walls we have imposed upon ourselves. It also plays directly to the walls we have created because of computers.
I'm not a teacher (although all researchers do teach to some degree), a graphic designer (although I like to play), a computer expert (faaaarrrrrr from it) or a literary scholar (hence the occasional typos) but I do have a desire to try and get across some of the information that various people have for years tried to place in my head, or that I have simply picked up in the course of my research.

Most of the information pages do NOT have references - at this stage the site is pieced together from many and varied sources, and re-written in my own "style". References may be added later, but I do not intend these pages to be a one-stop shop for homework or assignments - merely a way of conveying the ideas behind virus-related stuff. If you need references for research purposes then I would hope you are able to track down the information the same way I did.

I am happy to provide any of the orignal virus graphics you find on the site - and as they are prepared using top-of-the-line software, I can deliver them in much better quiality than you will find on the site, so please ask. All I ask is that you reference them to me; Ian M. Mackay, Emerging Virus Group, Sir Albert Sakzewsksi Virus Research Centre & Clinical Medical Virology Centre, Royal Children's Hospital & University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.

I hope these pages can bring a little closer the local, and perhaps global scientific community.

Enjoy