The official opening ceremony of the Congress will be held on the morning of 7th November 2008. Our Guest-of-Honour is Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, Senior Deputy President of the National University of Singapore and our Keynote Speaker is Dr Raymond DuBois, President-Elect, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Guest-of-Honour:

Prof Tan Chorh Chuan
Senior Deputy President, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Prof Tan assists the NUS President to oversee strategic & budget planning and implementation of strategic plans for the University. He also works with the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Ministry of Health and the National Healthcare Group to develop the Kent Ridge campus as an academic medicine centre of excellence. In addition to this portfolio, Prof Tan is concurrently the Deputy Chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR); Deputy Chairman, Biomedical Research Council, A*STAR; and Chairman, Finance and Budget Committee, A*STAR.

Keynote Speaker:

Dr Raymond N. DuBois M.D., Ph.D.
President-Elect, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), USA
Provost & Executive Vice President, Academic Affairs, The University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre, USA

The NHG ASC Congress Dinner is a formal event held in recognition of the remarkable achievements made by our clinicians and outstanding contributions delivered to the healthcare community by members of the public as well as by our NHG staff. This year, we have the honour of having Dr Dennis McCullough, NHG Distinguished Visitor, deliver the NHG Lecture at our Dinner event. Dr McCullough is the author of the best-seller “My Mother, Your Mother: embracing "slow medicine" - the compassionate approach to caring for your aging loved ones”.

Speaker

NHG Distinguished Visitor (NHG Lecture)

Dr Dennis McCullough M.D.
Faculty member, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire, USA

Dr McCullough has been an “in-the-trenches” family physician and geriatrician for thirty years. He is the author of “My Mother, Your Mother: embracing "slow medicine" - the compassionate approach to caring for your aging loved ones”, a best seller that has caught the attention of the medical community and touched the hearts of many care-givers.

Title
“Slow Medicine: Quality Care in Life’s Late Years”

Abstract
Life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in numerous countries around the world has led to many more people living well into their 80’s, 90’s and beyond. Easier life circumstances, better living habits, and improved medical care have helped make this possible. The result for many is long life, but often life complicated by more diseases and the simple effects of aging, including the greater likelihood of frailty, both physical and mental. This is new territory for individuals, families, communities, and health care providers and systems of care. As we strive to blend the wonders of modern technological medical practice with humanistic care, what is our way forward? The philosophy and practice of Slow Medicine anchors itself in a better understanding of this Journey of Late Life. Slow Medicine challenges all of us to look at the important roles of time and relationships during this new, special period of aging in the modern world. Working within inevitable resource restrictions, elders, families and care systems must work with one another in a different way to allow individual and family choices to guide decisions within new supportive relationships—the essence of the practice of Slow Medicine.

Click here to download the publicity poster on Dr Dennis McCullough

Dr Michael Meaney, PhD, C.Q., FRSC
Director, Program for the Study of Behavior, Genes and Environment,
McGill University, Canada

Dr Meaney is the Associate Director of the Research Centre and Researcher at the Douglas Institute, and the James McGill Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and Neurosurgery at the McGill University. He was one of the first researchers to identify the importance of maternal care in modifying the expression of genes that regulate behavioral and neuroendocrine responses to stress, as well as hippocampal synaptic development. Prof Meaney has authored over 180 publications and presented at research institutes, government health agencies, and scientific meetings throughout the world.

Title
The Development of Individual Differences in Health and Capacity

Abstract
The quality of environmental conditions prevailing during early development influence health and capacity over the lifespan.  How might such effects occur and, more importantly, how they persist into adulthood and beyond?  Our laboratory and those of our collaborators examine the influence of environmental factors on the activity, or expression, of genes, including effects directly at the level of specific DNA molecules.  Factors such as nutrition and parent – offspring interactions can stably alter the expression of genes in the brain that regulate 1) the development synaptic connections between neurons, and subsequent learning and memory abilities, 2) hormonal and behavioural responses to stress, and 3) the development of reproductive systems.  These same factors also influence the expression of genes in fat and liver cells that bias in favour of obesity and against effective insulin regulation.  These findings could potentially explain how poor quality environments in early life render individuals at increased risk for illness in later life and compromise the quality of cognitive and emotional function.
An obvious question is simply that of how environmental factors might stably influence gene expression?  How could the activity of DNA molecules be influenced by social or nutritional factors? Recent studies from our lab and others suggest that environmental events, including social interactions, alter the signaling activity in certain cells.  These signals result in changes in the interaction of specific proteins with DNA sites, altering the chemistry of those regions.  The most common and stable such ‘epigenetic’ alterations is the addition or removal of a methyl group from cytosine nucleotides at certain DNA sequences.  These modifications stably alter the activity of these DNA regions, and such effects can potentially endure over the lifespan. 
It is becoming increasing apparent that specific environmental signals can operate in early development to modify the chemical properties and activity of the genome. Thus, environmental conditions, including parent – infant interactions, can become ‘biologically’ embedded through epigenetic modifications of the genome.  These and other findings also underscore the futility of attempts to define individual differences as a function of either genetic (nature) or environmental (nurture) forces.

Dr Philippe Kourilsky, PhD
Chairman, Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), A*STAR, Singapore
Chair of Molecular Immunology, College de France, France

Dr Kourilsky is a member of the Singapore Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council BMS IAC since 2000 and in Jan 2006, he took on the position as the Chairman of the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), A*STAR. Dr Kourilsky had a rapid scientific career both in academic and corporate settings. His work provided both a basic contribution to the understanding of immunity to tumours including the involvement of self-peptides in tumour immunity and the analysis of T cell receptor heterogeneity in tumour-infiltrating T cells, and to translational applications such as in the use of transfected tumour cells in cancer vaccines. Dr Kourilsky is the author of more than 300 publications in international scientific journals. He has also written several books dealing with science and the public and with the precautionary principle.

Title
What Limits Innovation in Drugs and Vaccine?

Abstract
The development of new drugs and vaccines is essential for the improvement of public health. Surprisingly, in spite of major advances in life sciences, relatively few new products have reached the market in the last few years. Several reasons which may explain this hopefully transient situation will be discussed: (1) In certain critical areas, the progress in basic biology has not reached maturity. (2) Clinical sciences and clinical trials constitute a bottleneck. (3) The social demand for reducing the potential, as well as demonstrated risks has increased. It translates into an ever more constraining regulatory environment and possible legal issues for the manufacturers. (4) Market conditions are changing. More attention is being paid to the health situation in the less wealthiest countries (e.g. AIDS). Local markets and manufacturing are developing. Personalized medicine may in the future increase the fragmentation of the market.

Dr Duane J. Gubler, ScD
Director, Program on Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore
Professor, Director, Asia-Pacific Institute Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, Hawaii

Dr Gubler, an internationally recognized expert on dengue fever, took on the post of Director, Emerging Infectious Diseases research program at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School since Nov 2007. He has extensive field experience in Asia, the Pacific, tropical America and Africa, and has published extensively in the areas of dengue and other vector-borne infectious diseases. Dr Gubler served as Director of the Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 15 years, and as Chief of CDC’s Dengue Branch for 9 years. He has served on numerous WHO committees and currently serves as Chair, Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative Board of Counsellors, on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases, the Environmental Health Institute in Singapore, the Emerging Diseases in a Changing European Environment (EDEN) Program. He is a Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and is past President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

The 6th Singapore AIDS Conference 2008
Fight the Disease, Fight the Stigma

Event:      Opening Ceremony
Time:        0830 – 1000 hours
Venue:     Theatre

Guest-of-Honour:

Dr Balaji Sadasivan
Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Chairman, National AIDS Policy Committee

Event: 6th Singapore AIDS Conference
Time: 1030 – 1745 hours
Venue: Meeting Rooms 325 & 326

Keynote Speakers

Mr JVR Prasada Rao
Director, Regional Support Team, UNAIDS, Asia Pacific

Former Union Health Secretary, Prasada Rao, is the Regional Director for the UNAIDS Regional Support Team based in Bangkok, Thailand. From 1997 to 2002, he was the Director of the Indian National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and was instrumental in successfully negotiating a large donor assistance for the National Programme from World Bank and bilateral agencies like USAID, DFID, AusAID. He devised and put into operation a national level sentinel surveillance system for tracking the epidemic which was the first of its kind in Asia and the Pacific. As Secretary for Health and Family Welfare Departments, he has made immense contribution to the health sector development and was instrumental in drafting the National AIDS Prevention and Control Policy and the National Blood Transfusion Policy of India. He also initiated the process for preparation of a large Reproductory & Child Health (RCH) project for the country. He was closely associated with the development of the National Health Policy 2002 in which importance of Public Health education was strongly highlighted .

Professor Andrew Grulich
Head of HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Programme, National Centre in HIV Prevention and Clinical Research,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Andrew Grulich is a past President of the Australasian Society for HIV Medicine and sits on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed journals including AIDS and Sexual Health. He is Chair of the ministerial advisory committee on AIDS in New South Wales, and has sat on the Australian Federal Health minister’s HIV advisory committee for more than 5 years. Andrew’s research interests include the transmission and prevention of HIV infection, the role of male circumcision, exposure prophylaxis, interventions targeted against sexually transmissible infections, and HIV-associated cancers. Andrew has contributed to more than 150 peer-reviewed publications.

NUHS International Colorectal Symposium 2008

7 November 2008 | 1415 – 1745 hours
8 November 2008 | 0830 – 1745 hours
Meeting Rooms 313-314

Dr John H. Kelly, MD, MPH
President & Executive-Medical Director, Lifestyle Health Education Inc., USA
Founding President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), USA

Dr. Kelly is the President and Executive-Medical Director for Lifestyle Health Education, Inc., a non-profit organization providing physician-led lifestyle interventions for the treatment and management of chronic disease. He is also the Founding President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), the medical specialty society for clinicians emphasizing therapeutic lifestyle interventions in the treatment of disease. Dr. Kelly's research interests focus on the therapeutic application of lifestyle interventions in the treatment of disease, with special emphases on cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, hypertension, insulin resistance and obesity. He conducted a multi-centre pilot study on the use of intensive lifestyle modifications in the treatment of chronic disease. He also served as co-Principal Investigator for a randomized clinical trial of lifestyle intervention in the treatment of diabetes in the Marshall Islands with Canvasback Missions, Inc. and served as Co-Investigator and medical director for a lifestyle intervention study, the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) program with Carilion Clinic diabetic patients in Roanoke, Virginia.

8 November 2008  |  1330 – 1545 hours  |  Meeting Rooms 311-312

Guest-of-Honour

Prof Tan Chorh Chuan
Senior Deputy President, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Dr Garret A. FitzGerald M.D.
Director, Institute for Translational Medicine & Therapeutics, UPENN, USA

Dr FitzGerald is the Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, and the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of research interests include the studies of pharmacology of COX and mPGES-1 inhibition; the potent vasodilator and platelet inhibitory properties of prostacyclin; and the regulatory and communication mechanisms of peripheral molecular clocks. Dr FitzGerald is also actively involved in the Editorial Boards of several renown journals including Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine.

Title

Peristroika in Pharma: Evolution or Revolution in Drug Development?

Abstract

The number of innovative new drugs approved by the FDA has declined markedly in the last decade and the current business model of drug discovery and development is becoming economically unsustainable. This coincides with incentives to re-engage the academic sector in translating discoveries in basic science to benefit the public health. Strategies to amend, but not revise the existing business model include partnerships with academic medical centers, modest initiatives to expand the pre-competitive space and the developments of diagnostics to personalize progressively the provision of medicine. Perhaps more likely prompted by the prospect of crisis than opportunity, novel business models may emerge. These will be dependent on addressing the deficit in human capital with expertise in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, revision of outmoded expectations and structures protective of intellectual property and an imaginative approach to the provision of capital that fosters the a global and modular approach to drug discovery and development.

Association of Diabetes Educators (Singapore)

Programme

0830-0900

Registration & Welcome

0900-0930

How to Set Up a Bariatric Programme

0930-1000

Techniques & Pitfalls of Laparoscopic Bariatric Surgery

1000-1030

Tea Break

1030-1430

Live Surgery Demonstration (according to availability of cases)

1. Laparoscopic Gastric Banding
2. Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy

Lunch will be served at 1230

1430-1700

Hands-on training