(L to R) Malyn Chulasiri, PhD,
President, Thai Environmental Mutagen Society; Yong Sang Song, MD, PhD,
Director, Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University; Mayor Itthiphol
Kunplome; and Pintip Pongpech, PhD, Dean, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Chulalongkorn University, take part in opening day exercises under instruction
from Seoul National University students (not shown).
Warunya Thongrod
More than 100 pharmacists, scholars and medical researchers discussed
aging, obesity and cancer at the International Conference on Nutrition and
Physical Activity in Pattaya.
Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome opened the Aug. 14-17 conference at the Centara Grand
Mirage Beach Resort, the first of NAPA’s annual meetings to be held outside
South Korea. The conference, the group’s fourth, was hosted by the Pharmacology
Faculty of Chulalongkorn University and Thai Environmental Mutagen Society
(TEMS).
Focused on “bio-modulation of health-beauty with nutrition and exercise,” the
conference looked at the advances in technology related to aging, obesity and
cancer with research going as deep as cellular levels and genetics leading to
new sciences and technologies.
Topics included pharmacogenomics, molecular genetics,
bioinformatics, metabologenomics, and stem-cell technology. Meetings focused on
the need for “translational research” which does not divide the boundaries
between basic and innovative research, allowing researchers in all related
sciences to share information for quick implementation in clinics.
Another innovation discussed was “personalized medicine,” in which individuals
are checked for defective genes, which are the cause of various diseases, and
searching for the medicine that will rectify the defective gene.
In all, the conference presented over 40 academic papers on aging, obesity and
cancer from authorities such as Sang-Woo Choi from Tufts University in the
United States; Jiankang Liu from Xi’an Jiaotong University in China; and Michael
Fenech of CSIRO Food and Nutritional Sciences in Australia.
Itthiphol hailed the meeting as proof of Pattaya’s increasing popularity in the
“meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions” sector.
