Commentary and Perspective (Invited)
The Asian Biophysics Association: Reborn from the COVID-19 pandemic
2024 年 21 巻 1 号 論文ID: e210009
詳細
2024 年 21 巻 1 号 論文ID: e210009
The Asian Biophysics Association (ABA; http://asian-bp.org) is an adhering body of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB). The ABA was founded in 2006 extending from the East Asian Biophysics Symposium (EABS), which was started in 1994 as a bilateral relationship between Japan and China with the enrollment of Korea (2000), Taiwan (2003) and Hong Kong (2006). In 2009, Australia and India joined the ABA, and the seven-member association has since continued to promote biophysical research and education in Asia through periodic organizations of symposia in association with the host member’s annual society meetings (Table 1) [1].
Chronology of the ABA Symposiuma
| Year | Name | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | The 1st East Asian Symposium on Biophysics | Harima, Japan |
| 1997 | The 2nd East Asian Symposium on Biophysics | Beijing, China |
| 2000 | The 3rd East Asian Symposium on Biophysics | Kyonju, Korea |
| 2003 | The 4th East Asian Symposium on Biophysics | Taipei, Taiwan |
| 2006b | The 5th East Asian Symposium on Biophysics | Okinawa, Japan |
| 2009 | The 6th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium | Hong Kong, China |
| 2011 | The 7th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium | New Delhi, India |
| 2013 | The 8th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium | Jeju, Korea |
| 2015 | The 9th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium | Hangzhou, China |
| 2018 | The 10th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium | Melbourne, Australia |
| 2022 | The 11th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium | Tainan, Taiwan |
a) For detailed regional demography of the participants in the past meetings, please refer to ref [1].
b) In 2006, the East Asia Biophysics Association was extended to the ABA
The most recent ABA symposium was held in June 2022 in Tainan, Taiwan, in partnership with the Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society of Taiwan, R.O.C. and the Asia Pacific Protein Association (http://www.asia-pacific-protein-association.org/). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-person meeting was only available to domestic participants, and the international speakers and attendees were limited to online communications. The joint meeting had five plenary lectures and 37 invited lectures. Nine of them were presented by female scientists. Despite the COVID-19 challenges, there were 149 on-site attendees, 94 online attendees, and 72 posters (26 online). In particular, Prof. Takayuki Uchihashi of Nagoya University, Japan, was invited to deliver the IUPAB Lecture to kick off the four-day symposium, including the Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Symposium.
The President and Secretary of the ABA is elected by the host society of the most recent ABA symposium. The Vice-President is elected by the host society of the upcoming ABA symposium. After the 2022 ABA symposium, Shang-Te Danny Hsu of Academia Sinica, Taiwan, took over the ABA presidency from Danny Hatter of the University of Melbourne, Australia. Yu-Chih (Grace) Lo of the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, is the Secretary General. The Vice-President who is also the Treasurer is Takayuki Nishizaka of Gakushuin University, Japan.
The next ABA symposium will be held as a special session of the IUPAB2024 Congress in Kyoto during 24–28 June, 2024. This will be the first in-person ABA symposium after a long COVID-19 break. Recognizing the importance of promoting our next generation biophysicists, the ABA will sponsor a number of Young Investigator Awards to present their work at the ABA symposium during the 2024IUPAB Congress. In the spirit of Rocking Out Biophysics by the organizing committee of the IUPAB2024 [2], one of the goals of the IUPAB2024 is to encourage mobility of talents, which is perfectly in line with the founding principle of the ABA.
Among the many regional bilateral and multilateral interactions among biophysicists in the Asia Pacific region, the Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Symposium has a strong tie with the ABA. In 2016, the President of the Biophysical Society of Japan, Haruki Nakamura, and the President of the Biophysics Society of Taiwan, Ping-Chiang Lyu, came up with the idea to organize an annual meeting between the two societies in rotating order as part of their domestic society annual meetings. The first Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Symposium was organized in Kumamoto, Japan (2017), followed by the meeting in Taichung, Taiwan (2018), and the next in Miyazaki, Japan (2019). The bilateral symposium was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and resurrected in 2022 together with the ABA symposium as a hybrid online meeting. In November 2023, Danny Hsu, Grace Lo, and Ping-Chiang Lyu, who sits in the ABA International Advisory Board, attended the 61st Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society of Japan in Nagoya to participate the first in-person Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Symposium after the COVID-19 break. Danny Hsu was invited to give a toast speech at the conference banquet as the President of the ABA. Danny Hsu congratulated the organizers for the diversity of the scientific topics, and the high-quality presentations from the trainees. He also reiterated the importance of international collaborations and mobility of talents, as he has personally benefited from several fruitful collaborations with his Japanese colleagues. He announced the next Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Symposium, which will be held in Hsinchu in May 2024. Last but not least, he promised to mobilize, in his capacity as the President of the ABA, biophysicists from within the Asia-Pacific region and beyond to actively participate the IUPAB2024 Congress.
Recent years have witnessed rapid growths in scientific research outputs from the Asia Pacific region, both in quality and quantity. This upward trend is spurred by active investments in infrastructure and international training programs that have made direct impacts in building up the research capacities, including areas in biophysics research. Nevertheless, recruiting qualified researchers is a global challenge that is felt even for the best institutions [3]. Creating a stimulating forum for our next-generation biophysicists to promote themselves and to build up stronger ties may be one way to facilitate mobility and collaborations to reach their full potentials and maximize their achievements. And this is exactly what ABA strives to achieve in the years to come.
