Source: Zhongshan School of Medicine
Written by: Zhongshan School of Medicine
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The First Symposium on High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) Functions and Cardiovascular Diseases was held successfully on North Campus of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) on September 23-25, 2014. The symposium was organized jointly by the Chinese Society of Cardiology Basic Research Branch, The First Affiliated Hospital of SYSU and other cardiovascular research groups  in the university. The International Society for Heart Research Chinese Section, the Chinese Society of Lipids and Lipoproteins, the Atherosclerosis Society of Chinese Association of Pathophysiology and the International Atherosclerosis Society Chinese Branch co-hosted the meeting. About 300 participants from Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Society of Cardiology, Peking University, Sun Yat-sen University and other universities attended the symposium. 

The symposium focused on 5 topics around the relationship between HDL functions and cardiovascular diseases. It is the first symposium centering mainly on HDL functions and cardiovascular diseases in China. It may be also the first symposium about this topic in the world based on the search on “google” or “yahoo”, which produced no relative records on conference of this kind.

The symposium started on the morning of September 24 and was presided over by Prof. Jingsong Ou, vice director of the cardiovascular surgery department in The First Affiliated Hospital of SYSU, recipient of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and Pearl River Scholar. Prof. Shenming Wang, president of the hospital, delivered a welcoming speech, and Prof. Yunzeng Zou, vice director of the Chinese Society of Cardiology Basic Research Branch, also gave an opening  remark on behalf of the Society.

More than 10 specialists on HDL research presented their edge-cutting findings at the symposium, including Prof. Boliang Li from Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Manping Wu from Fudan University, Prof. Naiming Zhou from Zhejiang University, Prof. Jingsong Ou and Prof. Musheng Zeng from Sun Yat-sen University.  Another dozen of leading scientists on cardiovascular research, coordinated and participated in the plenary discussions, including Prof. Chaoshu Tang, Chief Scientist of National "973" Key Basic Research Project from Peking University; Prof. Qi Chen, secretary of the Party Committee of Nanjing Medical University; Prof. Peiwu Sun, the outstanding cardiac surgeon; Prof. Jian Li from Beijing Institute of Geriatrics of Ministry of Health;  Prof. Wenhua Ling, director of the Office of International Cooperation & Exchange of SYSU; and Prof. Tianxin Yang, director of Hypertension Research Institute of SYSU. 

The symposium united closely the basic research on HDL with cardiovascular diseases. Normal HDL is believed to possess the cardiovascular protective effect. However, the clinical trials from recent years have revealed that raised HDL level alone can not decrease the incidence of cardiovascular events, indicating that the function of HDL, not the level of HDL is critical in its effect. The study on the change of HDL functions is still in the early stage and there are many unsolved problems. The symposium would facilitate the cooperation and communication for the researchers in this fields to keep in pace with the world trend. 

This symposium was creative in its meeting style. In each section, several specialists on HDL gave a short presentation about their research and the scientists in the cardiovascular fields directed the following discussion. This offers an opportunity for specialists of different fields to explore the same issue from different professional perspectives and thus facilitates the process of scientific problems solving. It also enforces the combination of basic research and clinical work and promotes the translation from basic research to clinical practice. Participants of the symposium  highly evaluated the new meeting style. 

The symposium provided a high standard platform for the academic communication and cooperation among researchers on HDL and cardiovascular studies, exerting a positive impact on the image of SYSU in the field of cardiovascular research in China.