Second Sino-German Symposium at the Heinrich Pette Institute
At the second Sino-German symposium from September 1 to 5, 2018, German and Chinese scientists met to exchange ideas on current topics in infection research. The Heinrich Pette Institute, together with the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention (IVDC) of the Chinese Center for Diseases Control (China CDC), hosted the event with this year’s topic "Globalization - Challenge and Response for Infectious Diseases".
At the symposium, the Chinese guests not only met HPI researchers, but also high-ranking scientists from numerous HPI cooperation partners: In addition to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, the Research Center Borstel and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, representatives of the Charité Berlin, the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, the University of Heidelberg, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, the University of London, the University of York and the University of Lübeck took part in the symposium.
In addition to representatives of the Chinese CDC, the Chinese delegation included scientists from the Capital Medical University Beijing, the Gansu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Taishan Medical College and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In addition, the young scientists of the Sino-German summer school "Structural Biology in Infection" at the University of Lübeck, which took place a week earlier, were also invited to the symposium.
State Councilor Eva Gümbel from the Hamburg Ministry of Science, Research and Equality opened the symposium with a welcome address.
From Monday to Wednesday, the participants of the symposium attended a total of five sessions and 39 lectures on a wide variety of topics in infection biology: From the host change of influenza A viruses to the latest findings on infections with Ebola or corona viruses, from the spread of multi-resistant tuberculosis strains to new research results on the long-term consequences of the Zika virus epidemic in South America.
The Chinese guests were already welcomed at the HPI on the Sunday before the start of the symposium and got the opportunity to visit the city of Hamburg in a red double-decker bus. All participants of the event were also invited to participate in a symposium dinner and cruise on the River Elbe, which took place on Tuesday evening.
The symposium was funded by the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC), established as a joint venture by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG). The application was submitted jointly by the HPI and the IVDC.
