APSN 1998 - Seoul, South Korea
23-26 June
The 4th meeting of the Asian-Pacific Society for Neurochemistry and the annual meeting of the Korean Society for Neuroscience. Seoul, Korea, June 24-26, 1998.
Report from the APSN Meeting, Seoul, Korea The 4th biennial meeting of the Asian Pacific Society for Neurochemistry (APSN) was held in Seoul earlier this year (June 24-26). The conference was hosted by the Korean Society for Neuroscience. Professor Yoo-Hun Suh and his co-Chairperson Professor Sang Bok Lee (and of course all the members of the local committee) must be congratulated for organizing such an excellent meeting. The APSN was founded 1991 at the Sydney ISN meeting and provides a valuable federation for many Neurochemistry and Neuroscience Societies in the Asian Pacific Region. Despite the well recognized economic problems currently afflicting much of this region Korea was able to lay on the largest and most extensive APSN meeting so far. Much of the success of this meeting may be attributed to the considerable efforts made by the organizing committee to attract significant support from a number of sponsors including the ISN, Japanese Neurochemical Society, Seoul National University, the Daewoo Foundation, and the Korea Research Foundation. The Society owes a considerable debt of gratitude to these and other generous sponsors. The meeting, spread over three days, attracted about 400 scientists from 16 countries including China, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Australia and Russia. As would be expected there was particularly strong participation from the host country Korea with representatives from at least 30 research institutes. It was particularly pleasing to see such a large number of students and young scientists attending the meeting and the ISN supported workshop in “Molecular Techniques in Neurochemistry” which preceded the main event. The meeting itself consisted of 5 plenary lectures with invited speakers form the USA, Japan, Korea and Australia, and 16 symposia featuring a total of 69 speakers. The increased size of the meeting necessitated the running of concurrent symposia sessions for the first time. A wide range of current topics were featured in the selected symposia including Synaptic Plasticity, Gene Structure and Expression, Neurotoxicity, Brain Ischemia, Brain Development and Ageing and Apoptosis. Further to the many excellent presentations among the plenary and symposia sessions the conference organizers had allowed appropriately generous amounts of time to view and discuss the many high quality poster presentations (183 posters in all). The ISN has kindly published the abstracts from this meeting in J. Neurochemistry 70 (supplement 2) 1998. In addition to the comprehensive and often exciting scientific program the organizers had arranged a generous social calendar from a splendid welcome reception and buffer through to a closing gala dinner accompanied by traditional Korean music and dance. Regrettably I missed this latter event owing to the need to return to New Zealand and mark an accumulation of exam papers! Like many of the overseas visitors I was however grateful for the opportunity to see something of the extraordinary city of Seoul. I was also lucky enough to be able to join one of the conference tours to the ancient capital of Kyongju and thus see the contrast of the old with the new Korea, dramatically different of course but linked by a common, uniquely Korean, theme. I have little doubt that all those who attended the 4th APSN Meeting found it an enjoyable and stimulating event and will be looking forward with interest to eh next meeting which will be held in Australia in 2000. The APSN meeting in Seoul can be regarded as highly successful not only in its scientific content but also because it brought together and stimulated interaction, collaboration and perhaps even competition between neuroscientists throughout the Asian Pacific region. The APSN Council meeting which took place during the conference elected the following positions: President: Dr. Peter Dodd. Australia; Treasurer: Prof. Eishichi Miyamoto, Japan; Secretary: Dr. Stephen Bunn, New Zealand: and two new council members Dr. O.P.Tandon, India, and Prof. B.H. Shah, Pakistan. Further details of the Society and its activities can be found on the APSN web site and I would welcome any comments, suggestions or enquires that you may have by E-mail. Dr. Stephen J. Bunn,
Secretary of APSN,
Dept. Anatomy & Structural Biology, University of Otago,
P.O.Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand, Phone: +64-3-479-7366, Fax: +64-3-479-7254, E-mail: Stephen.bunn@stonebow.otago.ac.nz | 
