Abstract
Few things in our professional or personal lives surpass the thrill of seeing a shared vision become a reality. I had the opportunity on October 28th and 29th 2013 to experience exactly that feeling. Several of us in attendance had been part of the conception of the SEBM/EBM China Outreach Office and the 1st International Experimental Biology and Medicine Conference (IEBMC) and now were watching our vision become manifested on a stage at the Purple Mountain Hotel in Shanghai China and an office within the Shanghai Cancer Institute.
OPENING OF THE SEBM/EBM CHINA OUTREACH OFFICE IN SHANGHAI
One year ago at the fall 2012 SEBM Council meeting, at the suggestion of the Editor-in-Chief, the council created a task force to recommend an approach towards an SEBM/EBM Outreach in China. I chaired the task force which was also composed of Rex Gaskins (now SEBM President), Ziwei Huang (EBM Associate Editor), James Kang (Chair of the SEBM Publication Committee) and Warren Zimmer (now SEBM President Elect). The task force presented its report and recommendations to the SEBM Council at its spring 2013 meeting.
The task force report had two major components:
We would open a SEBM/EBM China Outreach Office at the Shanghai Cancer Institute, in association with Renji Hospital of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Professor Yiqian Wu would be the Director of this office. We would hold an Annual International Experimental Biology and Medicine Conference (IEBMC).
The recommendations of the SEBM/EBM China Outreach Task Force were unanimously approved by the SEBM Council. It was now time to implement the proposal.
1ST INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE CONFERENCE (IEBMC)
It is my pleasure to report that we held a truly historic event for SEBM, EBM and our colleagues in Shanghai at the Purple Mountain Hotel on the 28th and 29th of October 2013.
What led up to this event was that Jessica Homa (SEBM Executive Director) and I met Professor Yiqian Wu in Manhattan on June 28, 2013 during her visit to the US. During this meeting we discussed IEBMC and agreed that the conference would be held in October 2013 and that the subject should change each year. Further because of the short lead time to plan and execute the 1st IEBMC we agreed that the initial conference should be on the subject of “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cancer Research”. The reason was that this was an area of great interest to our colleagues in Shanghai and the SEBM membership. On July 22nd 2013 a teleconference was held to discuss the planning of the 2013 IEBMC. On the call was Professor Yiqian Wu, Professor Kong Xianmin (Director of the Shanghai Cancer Institute), Michael Friedlander (SEBM Past President), Rex Gaskins, Warren Zimmer, Bob Mallet, Jess Homa and me. We discussed all of the meeting logistics and agreed on the proposed Focus for 2013 being Cancer Research. Yiqian Wu and Jessica Homa and I had only 3 months to arrange this International Conference. The hard work of Yiqian Wu and her staff and Jessica Homa made this difficult time-line manageable.
The 2013 IEBMC was a great success both scientifically and socially. The registered attendance for this 1st IEBMC was 175. We had outstanding keynote talks from Peter Stambrook and Wei-Qiang Gao; plenary talks from Rex Gaskins, Warren Zimmer, Sean Tsai and Yongzhong Liu; and Farzin Farzaneh gave the lead talk and chaired the platform session which included a presentation by Leszek Kotula (a member of the EBM Editorial Board). I also had the opportunity to lead an EBM Workshop where I discussed the value of our journal, its archives and SEBM membership.
International attendees (175 registered) participated in the two day conference focused on Interdisciplinary approaches to Cancer research. The ceremony symbolizing the partnership between SEBM, EBM, the Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University The speakers and organizers of the historic 1st Annual IEBMC Dedicating the SEBM/EBM China Outreach Office And seeing it in person, for the first time, at the Shanghai Cancer Institute Peter Stambrook's Keynote Lecture was on “Genomic Equivalence: From Discovery to Practice” Wei-Qiang Gao's Keynote Lecture was on “Cancer Stem Cells, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Castration Resistance of Prostate Cancer”
The 2014 IEBMC will be a three day conference again held at the Purple Mountain Hotel in Shanghai China on October 15th to 17th. The focus of the 2014 IEBMC will be “Stem Cell Biology and Human Diseases.” It will feature three keynote speakers, ten plenary speakers, two platform sessions and a poster session. The EBM Associate Editor for Stem Cell Biology, Jian Feng, is co-Chairing the 2014 IEBMC Scientific Planning Committee with Wei-Qiang Gao serving as the other co-Chair. Jian and Wei-Qiang have informed me that the following outstanding stem cell researchers have been confirmed as Plenary Speakers for the 2014 IEBMC: Vania Broccoli, Head of the Stem Cells and Neurogenesis Unit, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; Sheng Ding, William K. Bowes, Jr. Distinguished Investigator, the Gladstone Institute, University of California, San Francisco; Miguel Esteban, Investigator, Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Science, Guangzhou, China; Jian Feng, Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY; Gordon Fishell, Julius Raynes Professor of Neuroscience and Physiology, New York University, NY, NY; Yupo Ma, Professor, Department of Pathology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY; and Yufang Shi, Director of Institute of Health Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai China; Yi Sun, Director of the Stem Cell Research Center, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Qi-qun Tang, Professor and Director for the Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Fudan University Shanghai Medical School, Shanghai, China; and Guo-tong Xu, Associate Dean and Professor of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
There will be workshops for students and post doctoral fellows on “How to Publish Your Manuscript” and on “Career Development”.