The 10th International Symposium of the Society for Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA) aims to promote understanding of the molecular basis of human health, and to enhance the progress of genomics, proteomics and biotechnology, an organizer of the meeting announced here Thursday.

Major topics to be discussed during the meeting, scheduled between August 16 and 20, 2003, will include stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, genomics, bioinformatics, gene therapy, cancer research, HIV/AIDS vaccination and current therapy, and biological terrorism, the organizer said.

Chen Zhu, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS) and vice-chairman at next year's meeting, said bioscience and biotechnology will bring profound changes to human society and are likely to change the whole pattern of future industry and the economy.

The meeting will increase mutual understanding, add to the knowledge of bioscientists at home and overseas, and help expand the influence of the Chinese mainland's bioscience and biotechnology on the world stage, he told a press conference.

"The Chinese community is playing an increasingly important role on the international bioscience stage and will make more and greater contributions to the world in the future," he said.

Co-hosts of the symposium are the SCBA, a US-based non-profit academic organization with over 2,500 members globally, the CAS, Beijing University, and the Chinese Academy of Medical Science.

The organizer plans to invite four or five Nobel Prize laureates, some academics from national academies of sciences in both China and the United States, and some 150 speakers at the cutting edge of biological, medical and biotechnological research.

The biennial event has been held in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan and the 2003 symposium will be the 10th since the SCBA was established in 1984.

(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2002)