Contents
Research of Zhongshan Hospital Reported at ASCO Conference
The annual conference of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) was held in Chicago from June 5 to 8. The ASCO marks the oncology conference of biggest scale with information of latest progress in this field. About 30,000 delegates around the world attended the conference with the theme of “Patients, Path, Progress”.
The conference tracked the tendency and hotspots in cancer treatment, and publicized research results that are significant to clinical practice. A research result about auxiliary therapy after operation conferred by the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) for gastric cancer from Fudan University Zhangshan Hospital was reported on the conference. This was the first time that Zhongshan Hospital was involved in international clinical cooperation. Though the hospital merely presented 8 cases, the involvement was of great help in improving its research ability and widening its vision.
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Chinese and American Experts Had Face-to-Face Communication on ATS Annual Meeting
American Thoracic Society (ATS) Annual Meeting was held from May 13 to 18 in Denver, Colorado. Director Respiratory Bai Chun-xue of Zhongshan Hospital attended the meeting, and organized ATS Chinese Young Scholars Session in Denver which blows "Chinese style."
Before the meeting, the Chinese delegation led by Professor Bai Chunxue visited top-ranked National Jewish Hospital (NJH), and cordially met by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Mr. Governor said: "The success of China-US scholar seminar laid a good foundation for future cooperation between the two sides." Professor Bai Chunxue was invited to address at NJH "Special Expert Seminar ", entitled" COPD in China: The Burden and Importance of Proper Management ". Dean Michael Salem, vice president Gregory Downey, the former medical director of the Richard J. Martin, director of interventional lung Ali Musani, director of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Rohit Katial, director of sleep and respiratory diseases, Teofilo Lee-Chiong, director of comprehensive immune Hong Wei Chu, and other NJH experts held heated discussion with Chinese scholars upon the following topics as institution-building, chronic lung disease, infectious diseases, allergic and immune diseases, clinical research focus and progress issues.
May 14, the Chinese delegation of respiratory physicians in Colorado held ATS young scholars seminar. Senior researcher Song Yuanlin and other 16 Chinese scholars gave brief introduction of their research. Professor Monica Kraft, ATS Executive Chairman-elect, presented to each physician $ 1,000 bonus as the "Travel Award", so as to encourage them to work on research and actively participate in international academic communication. Chinese scholars’ presence in the respiratory activity to the international stage creates a good start, Professor Wang Chen of Zhong Nanshan, one of China's leading respiratory experts look forward to the continuation of such activities.
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Fudan Celebrated the 90th Anniversary of the Founding of CPC
June 30, a grand gathering was held in Guanhua Building to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of Communist Party of China. Around 500 of Leadership of different levels, representatives of students and both present and retired faculty members, were present at the gathering.
With awards issued to advanced party members and organizations, people looked back on the historical development of CPC and the great achievements that have been made after the founding of the party, and expressed their sincere feeling of happiness obtained under the leadership of the party.
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“Melbourne Day” Held at Fudan
The University of Melbourne delegation visited Fudan on May 27, 2011. Led by Pro Vice -Chancellor Simon Evans, the delegation comprised of Robert Saint, Dean of Science,; Mark Wang and Paul Taylor, Associate Deans of School of Land and Environment; David Shallcross, School of Engineering；Sherry Zhang, Shanghai Office Manager and professional staffs from Office of Admissions, Advancement and Schools of Business, Science and Engineering, etc.
The University of Melbourne was founded in 1853, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Australia. The University of Melbourne has 13 schools/departments, providing first class programs in Arts, Architecture & Design, Economics & Business, Education, Engineering, Land & Food Resource, Law, Music, Veterinary Medicine. Both the University of Melbourne and Fudan University are U-21 members. Melbourne and Fudan started student exchange arrangement from 2001, it is one of the most popular international student programs at Fudan.
Fudan Vice President Lu Fang received the Melbourne University delegation in the morning and exchanged ideas with Pro VC Evans on the expansion of the exchange and cooperation between the two institutions, especially on increasing the student exchange: dual degree, CSC programs, student internship programs and summer programs.
On a paralleled session: Mr. Bruce Mortimer of Melbourne’s Advancement Office met with his Fudan counterparts to share experiences on alumni affairs management.
In the afternoon, Pro VP Simon Evans, Prof. David Shallcross, Prof. Robert Saint and Prof. Paul Taylor met their counterparts and students at Fudan and gave academic talks after the meeting.
The professional staffs from Schools’ recruitment offices and the Office of Admissions held Melbourne Day session at Fudan to meet with students and to answer inquiries concerning the study at the University of Melbourne.
On the same day, the Dean of Melbourne’s Medical School James Best and the Associate Dean Doris Young visited Fudan’s Medical campus and affiliated hospitals.
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Fudan Scientists Discovered Features and Migration Patterns of Newborn Nerve Cells in Primates’ Brain
Recently scientists from Fudan University discover features and removal patterns of newborn nerve cells in primates’ brain, bringing new hope to regeneration of nerves after brain damage
It has always been the focus of scientific research whether neural stem cells exist in primates’ brains and what functions they possess, i.e. whether nerve cells can regenerate themselves after brain damage.
After years of unremitting efforts, Prof. Yang Zhengang and his students finally precisely located the newborn neurons generated by neural stem cells in adult macaques’ brains, traced and studied the specific long-distance removal pattern of these newborn neurons. Scientists are now making every effort to find out how to take advantage of this long-distance removal feature of new-born nerve cells in order to cure brain damage. To explore the secrets of brain further, Prof. Yang and his research team studied the human brain bank in Wuhan, China and found some neural stem cells again in tissues of adult man’s brain. They noticed that these neural stem cells are very active in brains and can generate new neurons continuously. This achievement brings new hope to the regeneration of nerves after brain damage of human. Moreover, Prof. Yang and his students did some further study on the regulatory mechanism of neural stem cells in normal and damaged brains respectively by means of conditional gene knockout. Finally they found a gene called Sp8 which plays a crucial role in the generation and long-distance removal of nerve cells. Without Gene Sp8, neural stem cells would lose its original functions. That is to say, the importance of Gene Sp8 to neural stem cells is far beyond scientists’ former knowledge.
According to Prof. Yang, his research team on neural stem cells and nerve development is carrying out even deeper studies on the secrets of brain development and other functions of Sp8.
It is reported that Prof. Yang was introduced into the Research Institute on Brain Science of Fudan University in 2007 as a young PI, whose main research fields include neural stem cells and nerve development. He has already made several important scientific achievements in recent years. In 2009, a research team led by him published a paper on the Neural Science Magazine, reporting for the first time the unique behavior pattern of neural stem cells in damaged brains and offering new thoughts for the appliance of neural stem cells in curing nervous system diseases. This research achievement drew great attention from the academic circle. The Science News Magazine subsidiary to American Science and Public Organization, whose initial issue was in 1922, specially published a comment on this research in order to improve the public’s understanding on neural stem cells.
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Fudan Scientists Raised New Hypothesis for the Cause of Tyrosine Loss
With the supervision of PhD supervisor and ChangKong Scholar Professor GU Xun, Associate Professor SU Zhixi and PhD candidate HUANG Wei from School of Life Sciences and Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, has recently raised a new hypothesis that “the high guanine-cytosine (GC) content of metazoan genomes was the primary driver in the loss of tyrosine residues”, challenging the most authoritative argument in the current research area of life sciences in the world that “loss of tyrosine residues from proteins in metazoans was driven by positive selection to remove potentially deleterious phosphorylation sites”. The new hypothesis has provided a new perspective for the researches on the evolution of tyrosine kinases regulation network system and the evolution of phenotype complexity of organisms.
This new research result has been published on the 20 May 2011 issue of Science. For more details, please refer to the article on Science online magazine: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6032/917.1.full#aff-1.
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Prof. Wang Jiyao from Zhongshan Hospital Delivers Keynote Speech on KASL Conference
The 17th conference of Korean Association for the Study of the Liver was held in Seoul from June 9th to 11th. Every year, more than 1000 experts in liver research field would attend the meeting to share the latest research results every year. The committee of KASL invites experts from U.S.A, China and Japan to come for the first time this year.
Prof. WANG Jiyao from Gastroenterology department, Zhongshan Hospital is the only Chinese liver disease expert to give keynote speech on the conference, focused on “The advances in anti-fibrosis therapy—targeted delivery of anti-fibrotic drugs for liver fibrosis”. In addition, Dr. LI Feng delivered the speech on “.Molecular imaging of hepatic stellate cell activity by visualization of hepatic integrin alfavbeta3 expression on noninvasive diagnosis of liver fibrosis”
In recent years, with the leadership of Prof. Wang Jiyao, the research group has been working on targeted diagnosis and treatment for liver fibrosis, of which, a number of dissertations have been published, such as “Molecular imaging of hepatic stellate cell activity by visualization of hepatic integrin alfa v beta3 expression with SPECT in rat” (published in Hepatology 2011 DOI 10.1002/hep.24467), “Sterically Stable Liposomes Improve the Therapeutic Effect of Hepatic Stimulator Substance on Fulminant Hepatic Failure in Rats” (published in Biochemical Pharmacology 10.1016/j.bcp.2011.05.025)
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President of Tecnologico de Monterrey en Queretaro visited Fudan University
On June 2, President Oscar Peralta of Tecnologico de Monterrey en Queretaro visited Fudan University. This was also his first visit to Fudan University. With his strong love for China and confidence of its promising future, Mr. Peralta hopes that more opportunities can be provided for Mexico students to know further about China as well as to start careers in China.
Chen Yinzhang, Special Advisor to Fudan President on International Affairs, and Liu Li, deputy Director of Foreign Affairs Office met President Oscar Peralta and introduced to him the current situation of the exchanges between students of the two universities. Two officers from the Industry Office of Fudan University introduced the relative operation of enterprise funds for students to start their own enterprises. With much interest in this program, President Oscar Peralta hopes that there’ll be the chance to cooperate with Fudan University and to extend enterprise funds also to foreign students. Director for China area Mercedes Gonzalez from Asia and Pacific School of Tecnologico de Monterrey also attended the meeting.
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Visit by President of Oklahoma State University
A delegation led by President of Oklahoma State University, Prof. Burns Hargis visited Fudan on June 20. Prof. Yang Yuliang, President of Fudan warmly received the delegation on campus. During the conversation, President Burns Hargis expressed his hope to enhance the exchange between two universities.
Founded in 1890, OSU is a public school with more than 200 programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels. With the successful experience of cooperations between two universities over the past few years, OSU hopes to sign an intercollegiate agreement with Fudan this time. In the meantime, OSU also hopes to incorporate more prestigious universities to provide undergraduates with more academic exchange opportunities and professors with more cooperation platforms.
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Visit by Prof. Julian Hunt, Fellow of Royal Society
The University College London delegation led by Honorary Prof. Julian Hunt, Baron Hunt of Chesterton, Fellow of Royal Society and Former Professor at Cambridge University, visited Fudan University from June 21 to 23.
The delegation received a warm welcome by Fudan President Yang Yuliang and Executive Vice President Chen Xiaoman. Both universities expressed their willingness to seek future academic exchange and cooperation on Climate Change, Air Pollution Model and Interdisciplinary Studies. Fudan Former President Yang Fujia, Executive Director Dr Zhu Chouwen from Fudan Foreign Affairs Office, Prof. Ma Weichun, Prof. Chen Jianmin and Prof. Yang Xin from Fudan Department of Environmental Science and Engineering (DESE), were at present during the meeting.
Prof. Hunt was invited to deliver a speech titled Science and Policy of Climate Change to faculty and students at DESE. A seminar was also held for DESE faculty representatives to conduct face-to-face exchange with Prof. Hunt on Global Climate Change and Energy and Environmental Biotechnology.
As a leading British authority on turbulence modelling, Prof. Hunt is a former Director General and Chief Executive of the UK Meteorological Office and professor in the Department of Space & Climate Physics and Department of Earth Sciences at University College London. In 1989, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. After being elected in 1992 to the Executive Committee of the World Meteorological Organisation, he was active in negotiating new international arrangements for the exchange of data to ensure that National Meteorological Services worldwide can continue to collaborate with each other at the same time as encouraging the commercial applications of meteorology worldwide.
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Foreign Affairs Office, Fudan University
220 Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China
Advisor: CHEN Yinzhang
ZHU Chouwen
Editor-in-chief: Xue Hua
Contributor: CHEN Zhaojun
JING Ying
LIN Jieying
WANG Ying
XU Yefang
ZHAO Min
ZHAO Peiran
ZHANG Yingying
ZHU Yifei
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