World Medical Summit jointly organized by the World Medical Summit Committee and the Macau University of Science and Technology was held at the Four Seasons Hotel Macao in the morning of July 7, 2015. At the three-day 1st World Medical Summit, experts, scholars, and medical leaders will engage in extensive discussions on globally cutting-edge and heated topics that have caught the whole world’s attention, including Ebola virus, human bird flu, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), cancer, cardiovascular diseases, PM2.5 and respiratory diseases, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, personalized medicine, internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine, drug price and affordance, climate change and health, and other topics of interest so as to further international cooperation.
Academician Chen Zhu, President of Chinese Medical Association, Mr. Leong Vai Tac, Acting Chief Executive of the Macao SAR., Mr. Li Gang, Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, Mr. Pan Yun Dong, Deputy Commissioner the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in Macao SAR., Dr. Abu Bakarr Fofanah, Minister of Health ofSierra Leone, Dr Philippos Patsalis, Minister of Health of Cyprus, Academician Zhang Ya Ping, Vice President of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mr. Alexis Tam Chon Weng, Secretary for Social and Cultural Affairs of Macao S.A.R., Dr. Liu Chak Wan, Chancellor of Macau University of Science and Technology, Nobel winner Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel winner Prof. Erwin Neher, Nobel winner Prof. Robin Warren, and Nobel winner Prof. Ada E. Yonath jointly cut the ribbons for the opening of the Summit. Following the Opening Ceremony, Academician Chen Zhu gave a stimulating keynote speech titled “From Treatment of Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia to Precision Medicine” and officially opened the scholarly exchanges at the Summit.
That Macau is able to successfully host the 1st World Medical Summit demonstrates that Macau’s development and advances since it returned to China have won attention and high recognition from the international community; the Summit is bound to fill Macau’s development of medical education, scientific research, and establishment of a better higher-quality medical system with new inspirations and new momentums and become an important chapter in Macau’s history of medical science development.
When addressing the Opening Ceremony on behalf of all the participant experts and scholars of the Summit, Professor Aaron Ciechanover said that in the current world there are still many diseases, especially newly emerging epidemics that are in urgent need for researches on their development mechanisms and for effective treatment and medicines; this calls for close cooperation of the scientists and the financial support of the society. The joint efforts of the governments of all countries have never been more important, and the success in battling against Ebola has been a very good example. He believes that the World Medical Summit will play a very important role in moving forward the development of the world medical science.
When addressing the Opening Ceremony of the Summit, Chair Professor Liu Liang, Co-Chairman of the 2015 World Medicine Summit and President of Macau University of Science and Technology noted that the opening of the Summit would not only enable Macau’s medical science and technology to achieve greater development, but also produce significant and profound impact on the advances of modern medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and even the advance of the cause of human health. Macau is an international city that has a long history; here, the oriental culture and the western culture meet and fuse, the result of which is a steady society and a prosperous economy. Since it returned to China, the Macau SAR Government has attached great importance to the development of education, medical treatment, science and technology, and has formulated a series of relevant policies and laws to ensure and facilitate the long-term and healthy development of such areas. In order to construct a better high-quality health medical insurance system, expand the categories of medical services, and move forward researches of modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, the Macau SAR Government and the World Health Organization formulated a cooperation plan of traditional medicine, and are preparing to establish the World Health Organization Cooperation Center for Traditional Medicine in Macau. Also in order to promote the development of Chinese medicine and the industrialization of research outcomes, with the support of the Macau SAR Government, the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine and the Guangdong-Macau Chinese Medicine Science and technology Industrial Park were established. Such a series of efforts by the Macau SAR Government have made Macau a fertile land for attracting excellent national and international talents to conduct research on modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine.
President Liu Liang introduced that Macau University of Science and Technology is the largest-scale comprehensive university in Macau, offering programs and courses of Social Sciences, Science, Law, Management, Business, Medicine, Pharmacology, Art, Communication, Language and other disciplines. In terms of the medical science, the University has established the Faculty of Chinese Medicine, the University Hospital, the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, and the Macau Institute of Translational Medicine; through such efforts, an integrated teaching-clinic-research system that combines traditional Chinese Medicine and modern medicine has come into shape and has already achieved important development and progress in many areas. The MUST State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine owns 21 sets of various types of spectrometers and advanced apparatuses for molecular biology and molecular pharmacology studies, and has established many leading-edge technological platforms, including proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, microfluidics, live-cell imaging, 3rd DNA sequencing, molecular docking modeling, bioorganic chemistry studies, multi-dimensional integrated chemical components analysis, and bioactivity-based DNA barcoding of medicinal materials; such platforms are used for studies on the standards of innovative technologies and methods of quality control and assessment in Chinese medicine and innovative drugs; they are also used to interpret the modern scientific mechanisms of preventing and treating diseases using traditional Chinese medicine. Such state-of-the-art advanced technological platforms have also provided a foundation for establishing and expanding multi-disciplinary international cooperation.
The Summit is a historical event for the medical community of Macau and its neighboring regions and more than 40 internationally renowned scientists and leaders from China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil, Cyprus, Sierra Leone, Hong Kong (China), Macau (China), and other countries and regions attended the event and engaged in scholarly exchanges at the Summit, including four Nobel prize laureates.
