The 13th
Conference of Chinese Life Scientists Society in
the UK
15
September 2007
Cambridge
The 13th
conference of Chinese Life Scientists Society in
the UK (CLSS-UK) took place in the University of
Cambridge Clinical School of Medicine on 15th
September 2007, and was hailed as a resounding
success by all accounts.
The CLSS-UK
was found in 1992 in Cambridge and is the only
organization that represents all the Chinese
scientists working in life science and
biomedical fields in the UK. The annual
conference is one of the most important events
of the society, which brings members together to
discuss the latest scientific and technological
advances, share experience and establish
collaborations within UK and between UK and
China.
The call for
this year’s conference was well received. A
total of 115 people from academic, medical and
pharmaceutical etc backgrounds registered their
interest to attend the meeting and 65 of them
submitted 74 high quality scientific abstracts
covering a diverse range of subjects in life
science field. Following peer review by members
of the Scientific Committee, 17 abstracts were
selected for platform presentation and 52 for
poster presentation.
A glorious day
in otherwise a rather gloomy September brought
together 98 participants from around the UK to
Cambridge. The attendees included 34
postgraduate students, 45 postdoctorate research
fellow and 18 senior academics and scientists.
The meeting was opened by the conference chair
Dr Hongxiang Liu, who welcomed the delegates and
acknowledged the sponsors and all contributors
of the event, followed by an address by Dr
Henglong Hu, the President of the CLSS-UK, who
briefed the history of the organization and
perceived its future prospect. Mr Yongda Wang,
the Minister Counsellor of Education Section of
Chinese Embassy and the main sponsor of the
meeting, greeted the attendees with the latest
of development of China's science, technology
and higher education.
An intensive
programme of scientific presentations was opened
by the keynote speaker Dr Ming-qiang Zhang, a
senior Vice-President of Research & Development
at Biotica Technology Ltd and a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Chemistry, on his recent
discovery of the first-in-class muscle relaxant
reversing agent Sugammadex for which he and his
team were awarded the 2007 Malcolm Campbell
Memorial Prize in Biological and Medicinal
Chemistry by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
This was followed by a session of presentations
on the theme of drug discovery and
biotechnology. Other themes of the scientific
programme included the cancer genetics and
molecular and cell biology lead by Dr Pengtao
Liu of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute;
Patho-physiology, Immunology and microbiology
lead by Dr Qihe Xu of King’s College London; and
clinical research and medical engineering lead
by Dr Duolao Wang of London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine and Dr Wei Wang of De
Montfort University. A total of 18 talks and 38
posters on these themes and the subjects beyond
were presented and discussed, making the day
extremely busy yet very informative.
A new
initiative of the this conference was the lunch
time Meet-the-Experts session chaired by
Professor Ming-Qing Du of University of
Cambridge in which he and two distinguished
scientists in biotech/pharmaceutical industry,
Dr Ming-Qiang Zhang and Dr Henglong Hu, shared
with the audience their valuable experience in
career development in academic and industry. The
session was well attended, engaged lively
discussion and received positive feedbacks. It
was suggested that such activity should be
organised again and possibly extended in future
meetings.
The Young
Investigator Awards were hotly competed by 39
presenters. Following evaluation by a panel of 5
scientific officers, the best oral presentation
was awarded to Miss Hansong Ma of University of
Birmingham on her talk “‘Macrophage hijacking’
by the fatal human pathogen Cryptococcus”. The
best poster presentations were awarded to Miss
Chen Li of King's College London for her work
“Function of the endocannabinoid system in
pancreatic beta-cells”; Dr Hongyan Wang of
University of Cambridge for “Functional defects
of SKAP-55 deficient T-cells identify a
regulatory role for the adaptor in LFA-1
adhesion” and Ms Zhen Wang of University of
Cambridge for “Contrasting effects of mitogenic
growth factors on myelination in neuron-Oligodendrocyte
co-cultures”.
The conference
was sponsored by the Education Section and
Science and Technology Section of Chinese
Embassy in UK, companies GSK, BD and Invitrogen
and University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke’s
Hospital and Charlie Chan (Cambridge).
Their generous
support helped 23 junior researchers and
postgraduate students with a travel award to
attend the meeting. The organising team
and all
participants who got involved were highly
acknowledged.
In summary,
the 13th meeting of CSLL-UK served
the members well in both academic and social
communication and fulfilled the Society’s aim of
Run by Members and for Members. The success of
the meeting was a collective effort of all
members involved and is a clear demonstration
that the society continues growing bigger and
stronger.
(Dr Xin Fang,
Vice-Chairman and Secretary-General of CLSS-UK)
|