‘Restoring Organs’ Mini-Symposium at the GIBH with the German Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung disease

 Guangzhou, 4-6 August 2016 – The GIBH hosted a delegation from the Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Bad Nauheim, Germany including Thomas Braun; Director department for Cardiac Development and Remodeling, Hans Werner Seeger; Director department for Lung Development and Remodeling, and Dr. Rory Edward Morty. The symposium was jointly hosted by Duanqing Pei and Ralf Jauch and had the goal to further broaden the exchange with the German Max-Planck-Society, the premier research organization in the country that produced 33 Nobel Prize winners.

The GIBH hopes to leverage on its strong pipeline to produce functional cells and to test drugs to boost efforts to generate cellular and animal disease models to alleviate disease by cell replacement therapies and to identify drug leads for heart and lung disease. The strong background of the visitors in basic as well as translational research and their leading role in major clinical research centers in Europe will allow creating a mutually beneficial alliance.  The meeting was attended by representatives from the Guangzhou Medical University and the South University for Science and Technology. Before returning to Germany Thomas Braun visited the University of Hong Kong to meet Hung Fat Tse of the "Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory on Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine" to explore three-way collaborations to understand and cure heart diseases. Participants were excited to initiate collaborative project supported by funds from both countries, share resources, provide access to existing research infrastructure and to engage in joint PhD and Postdoctoral training programs.