Introduction:
The 15th International Symposium on Bioluminescence & Chemiluminescence was held at Galaxy Hotel of Shanghai 13 - 17 May 2008. It was the first time for the series of the conference came to China since the first symposium was held in Brussels at 1978. This symposium was organized by International Society for Bioluminescence & Chemiluminescence (ISBC), hosted by the Commission for Photobiology of Biophysical Society of China, co-hosted by the Commission for Analytical Chemistry of Chinese Chemical Society & the Commission for Luminescence of Chinese Physical Society, supported by China Association for Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of China & Chinese Academy of Sciences.
246 delegates from 19 countries & regions including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Russia, Sweden, UK, USA as well as Hong Kong & Mainland of China were attended the meeting.
Scientific Program:
Around 250 abstracts were submitted, 6 of them were invited as plenary lectures, 12 were invited as session lectures as well as 64 were oral presentations & more than 160 were poster for 9 different sessions as follows:
Luciferase-based Bioluminescence
Photoproteins-based Bioluminescence
Fundamental Aspects of Chemiluminescence
Application of Chemiluminescence
Luminescence Imaging
Quantum dots and other inorganic fluorescent materials
Environmental, evolutionary and ecological aspects of Bio- & Chemi-luminescence
Instrumentation and new methods
Fluorescence, Phosphorescence & Ultra weak luminescence
The speakers & the titles of the plenary lectures were as follows:
Prof. C.H. Contag (Stanford University, USA): Molecular imaging with bioluminescence: revealing mammalian biology and advancing therapeutics
Prof. Erkang Wang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China): Electrochemiluminescence-- Methodology and applications
Prof. Minoru Isobe (Nagoya University, Japan): Bioorganic Chemistry of Squid Bioluminescence
Prof. Aldo Roda (Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna, Italy): Analytical challenges for luminescence-based point-of-care testing devices in biomedical diagnostics
Prof. Zhujun Zhang (Shaanxi Normal University, China): Molecular imprinted polymer-based chemiluminescence imaging sensor
Prof. J. Woodland Hastings (Harvard University, USA): Sixty years of discoveries and applications in bioluminescence: from ATP to reporter genes
Proceedings :
Delegates who submitted the abstracts were also invited to submit a full length manuscripts for the Proceedings volume. This will be edited by Prof. Xun Shen, Prof. Xiao-Lin Yang, Prof. Xin-Rong Zhang, Prof. Zong-Jie Cui & Prof. Larry J Kricka. It will be published by World Scientific Publishing Singapore. All registered delegates will mailed a copy and it is expected that the volume will be available in 2009.
Marlene DeLuca Prizes:
The Marlene DeLuca Prizes were again generously given by Dr Fritz Berthold with his company Berthold Technologies (www.bertholdtech.com).
The International Society for Bioluminescence and Chemiluminescence chose a small Committee from the Society to judge the presentations and recommend the winners. As the representation of Dr Berthold, Mr. Bernd Hutter (Marketing Manager of Bioanalytical Instruments of BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES) presented the prizes at the banquet as follows:
Zhijuan Cao (School of Pharmacy, Fudan University Shanghai, China):
G-rich sequence-functionalized polystyrene microsphere-based instananeous derivatization for the chemiluminescence-amplified detection of DNA
Julien Claes (Laboratory of Marine Biology, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium):
Bioluminescence of sharks, a case study: Etmopterus spinax
Elena Eremeeva (Photobiology Laboratory, Institute of Biophysics Krasnoyarsk and Laboratory of Biochemistry, Wageningen University, Netherlands ):
The kinetics of Coelenterazine binding with apo-obelin and apo-aequorin
Michael Koksharov (Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov State University, Moscow Russia):
pH-tolerant mutants of Luciola mingrelica luciferase created by random mutagenesis
Sponsorships & exhibitors:
Thanks are again due to John Wiley & Sons (www.wiley.com) for publishing the abstracts in the journal Luminescence. Each registered delegate received a copy of this issue when they registered.
Promega Corporation (www.promega.com) generously sponsored the Welcome Reception at Cosmos Ballroom of the Galaxy Hotel, a very elegant venue with magnificent decorating. Before the excellent meal, the Workshop on Applications of Bioluminescent Technologies in Life Science Research was also held by Promega Corporation.
China Medical Technologies (www.chinameditech.com), the first Nasdaq-listed (CMED) company as China-based medical device enterprise, which produce chemiluminescence immunoassay kits & instruments, fluorescent in situ hybridization kits as well as the high Intensity focused ultrasound tumor therapeutic system, generously sponsored the Banquet at Zhangshengji, a very famous restaurant for the traditional cuisine of southeast China. In the hall full of original Chinese decoration & furniture, all of the delegates enjoyed the delicious food from one of four most important Chinese gastronomies, as well as temporarily experienced the real life at weekend as a common Chinese.
Besides the three sponsorships above, 10 companies listed as follows also attended & supported this symposium as exhibitor:
Chemclin Biotech Co, Ltd. (Beijing)
HAMAMATSU PHOTONICS K.K. (Beijing)
BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES GmbH & Co.
Berthold Detection Systems GmbH & Co.
PerkinElmer Instruments (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
Nature Gene Life Science Company Limited (Hang Kong)
Longmed Bio-Tech. Ltd. (Beijing)
Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Co. Ltd
Olympus China
NIKYANG Enterprise Limited (Hang Kong)
Social Program:
At the evening of 15 May, a dinner for International Advisory & Program Committee of this symposium was hosted by Local Organizer. In the dining-room with beautiful decorating & views, all of the participants enjoyed the excellent Chinese meal & service, as well as the warmly discussed the interesting issues related to bioluminescence, chemiluminescence & their own experiences on scientific research. After the dinner, an ISBC council meeting was held at a very elegant boardroom.
At 17 May, a free excursion was arranged to visit the Zhouzhuang, a 900 years old small town still remains as it were. In great spirits, all of delegates experienced the typical water town & the traditional life style of its inhabitants in Chinese history, listened to stories & songs about the famous residents of the town & their houses built by streams with sidewalks, walked along naturally turned streets together with water lanes, sailed the unique cockleshells on the net of canal under the stone bridges.
Maybe the most unusual event in this symposium is that many delegates spontaneously donating money to the people suffered the earthquake occurred at May 12 in Sichuan province of China. Whatever how much money was, or even just pray silently by heart, they are very very valuable. Because it told people in disaster that we stand with you, care of you & support you forever. It means we own the same world, same life, also same sympathy; it is best interpretation to humanity, mercy & caritas!
Acknowledgments:
The feed-back from the participants was very positive in terms of organization, accommodation, food quality and social events, even if it is not perfection. The Local Organizing Committee, students, volunteers, the member of the China International Conference Center for Science and Technology (CICCST) & Galaxy Hotel worked very hard to guarantee a smoothly operating symposium and the highest quality of service and indeed they solved problems of many kinds for the delegates.
The Local Organizing Committee thanks all participants, sponsors and supporters for they made this Symposium successful & contributed to the growth of the International Society for Bioluminescence and Chemiluminescence both in terms of scientific strength and social relationships, and look forward to meet again at the 16th Symposium.
Prof. Xiaolin Yang
Secretary-general of 15th International Symposium on Bioluminescence & Chemiluminescence
Council member of International Society on Bioluminescence & Chemiluminescence
People’s Hospital of Peking University
Beijing 100044, China
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