Forum takes up key medical issues of the future

Will personalized medicine be the new trend if human life expectancy reaches 120? What price are people willing to pay for medicine? These issues were taken up by Aaron Ciechanover, the winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2004 and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a speech titled "Personalized Medical Revolution — What Can We Do To Heal All Diseases?" at the recent Beijing International Forum on Biomedical Engineering and product fair in Beijing.

At the forum, more than 30 Chinese and foreign experts and scholars focused on topics such as the clinical research and application of stem cells; pathological diagnosis; innovative medicine; national science and technology planning and the medical and the pharmaceutical industry support policy.

Tian Xiaojuan, the deputy director of the Beijing Drug Evaluation Center, said that with the support of the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration for rapid review and approval, the world's first oral drug Roxadustat for the treatment of renal anemia had completed Phase III clinical trials in China, ahead of other countries. It is now pending approval.

Guo Yinglu, one of the leading researchers in China on urology, spoke of "noninvasive micro-energy medicine".

Hakon Hakonarson, the director of the Genome Translational Medicine Research Center at the Children's Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on "Precise Medical Methods: Gene Therapy and Patient Care — genomic scanning and genetic disease related analysis".

Besides, Liu Zhihong from the Nanjing University School of Medicine and Sendurai. A. Mani from the United States Anderson Cancer Center spoke on "Precision medicine and kidney disease — the transformation of Chinese and Western science and technology research".

On the subject of translational medicine, Yu Wenming, the deputy director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said: "A key issue in the successful realization of translational medicine lies in the exchange and sharing of information. This conference has created an effective platform for us to learn from.

"We should work together to build a bridge of communication between Chinese and Western medicine so as to promote the creative and innovative integration of Chinese and Western medicine, and modernize and internationalize the development of Chinese medicine."