2010-06-15

On 3 and 4 June 2010, SUMC representatives attended the 2010 East-West Alliance together with several other leading medical researchers from universities around the world. This year the conference was held in Canada, where the University of Manitoba acted as the host of the annual conference.

SUMC's delegation to the conference consisted of 9 members including Prof. Jiang Gu, Dean; Dr. Frieda Law, consultant for the Li Ka Shing Foundation; Prof. Junhui Bian, director of the Center for Faculty Development; and 6 graduate students. Dean Gu addressed the meeting with an academic report on "Comparative Analysis of H1N1, H5N1 and SARS Viral infection in Humans", while Prof. Bian spoke about "Teaching and Teachers: Roles of the Center for Faculty Development at SUMC". During the conference Dr. Frieda Law was presented with an "Award of Outstanding Contribution to Research" by University of Manitoba, expressing their gratitude to Dr. Law for her huge contributions to academic collaboration between the two universities over the past 8 years.

The East-West Alliance is a prestigious international network of Asian and Western medical research institutions and faculties founded in 2006. Besides SUMC, the participating universities of the Alliance include the University of California (Berkeley), Stanford University, St. Michael's Hospital (affiliated to University of Toronto), University of Alberta, University of Manitoba, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Institut Pasteur, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and University of Hong Kong. The East-West Alliance convenes annually to address significant scientific issues fostering productive collaborations between institutions, leading to high impact research and educational projects.

SUMC will act as host to the 2011 East-West Alliance annual conference, the first to be held on the Chinese mainland since the foundation of the Alliance. Previous meetings of the East-West Alliance were hosted by the University of Hong Kong, the University of Cambridge, Stanford University and the University of Manitoba.