February 19, 2010, Seoul, S. Korea ? Institut Pasteur Korea (CEO: Ulf Nehrbass, www.ip-korea.org), a global Translational Research Institute held ‘The First Institut Pasteur Korea International Symposium’ for Korean researchers at IPK auditorium located in Pangyo Techno-Valley on Friday, February 19, 2010.

The symposium was entitled ‘Targeting Mechanisms of Cancer and Diabetes’ and brought together world leaders in these research areas from Korea, USA, Australia, Canada, UK and Japan to give presentations to the attendees. The attendance was remarkable with all seats booked several weeks before the event.

The symposium was opened by a presentation from Dr Ulf Nehrbass, CEO of IPK who highlighted the world leading technologies available in the institut and how these can be applied to basic mechanistic research and drug discovery. He emphasized the future focus of IPK on these chronic disease areas and gave an open invitation for future collaborators to contact the institut to discuss possibilities.

Dr Tak Mak, a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and one of the most preeminent cancer experts in the world from Toronto gave the first invited presentation and provided an outstanding overview of new mechanisms and targets for drug discovery. His focus on cell metabolism highlighted the many common features between cancer and diabetes. This theme was revisited in the concluding presentation by Dr Grahame Hardie from Dundee, UK who focused on his research on AMPK, a protein proposed as a common target for therapy of cancer and diabetes.

The First Institut Pasteur Korea International Symposium clearly provided some of the most enthralling presentations seen on one occasion, and brought together a diverse and enthusiastic audience of researchers who may benefit from future research collaborations stimulated by this event.