“Innovative Medicine Month of Guangdong Province 2007” Begins

The “Innovative Medicine Month of Guangdong Province 2007” began at Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIBH) on July 5.  The activity is co-sponsored by GIBH, Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, Department of Science and Technology of Guangzhou, and Guangdong Science and Technology Exchange Center.  Over 160 professors, directors and researchers from related research organizations attended the opening ceremony.

Mr. LI Xinhua, Director General of the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province attended the ceremony and announced the “Month” open.  Dir. Li also delivered his inaugural address in which he emphasized the strategic importance of building Guangdong into a province with dominance at biomedicine and Chinese traditional medicine.  Guangdong enjoys favorable foundation for drug innovation: one the one hand, Guangdong owns a great number of powerful scientific institutions, universities and colleges, and enterprises with advanced technologies; on the other hand, Guangdong abounds in natural medicine resources. However, the capability with regard to innovative medicine in Guangdong province has much to improve. It was confirmed by Dir. Li that a new national center for drug screening and evaluation of international level would be established in Guangzhou with combined efforts from the central government and Guangzhou municipal government in the near future.

Also present at the ceremony were Prof. ZHONG Nanshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Dr. RAN Pixin, President of Guangzhou Medical College, Dr. WANG Mingwei, Director of the National Center for Drug Screening, Dr. ZHENG Wei, group leader of NIH Chemical Genomics Center.  In his speech, Prof. Zhong extended his congratulations to the opening of the “Month”.  And as a scientist of an older generation, Prof. Zhong also expressed his sincere expectations that scientists and researchers from GIBH as well as from all the other research institutions in South China would approach in the right direction, concentrate mainly on scientific research, and make substantial contributions to the public health.  After the brief opening ceremony, Drs WANG Mingwei and ZHENG Wei gave a lecture respectively.

During the whole “Month”, representatives from GSK, FDA, Merk, Amgen, Johns Hopkins University, Baylor College Medicine, Tufts University, etc will visit GIBH for scientific exchange and collaborative meeting.

Dir. LI Xinhua is delivering the opening speech

Prof. ZHONG Nanshan is giving a speech

Dr. WANG Mingwei is giving a lecture

Dr. ZHENG Wei is giving a lecture

A group photo at the opening ceremoney