Report on the 3rd Biennial Scientific Meeting held in Kobe September 24th-26th, 2004

The 3d Biennial Scientific Meeting was held at the International Conference Centre in Kobe, Japan.  It was a highly successful meeting with excellent scientific and clinical presentations, enthusiastic participation from the delegates with 130 oral and poster presentations and two wonderful banquets with delicious food.  The highlight of the meeting was the first day when over 200 paediatric endocrinologists from within the region joined approximately 600 colleagues from the Japanese Society for Paediatric Endocrinology.  I wish to thank Professor Kaichi Kida and his staff from Ehimie University for their organisation of the meeting and a special thanks to Professors Wayne Cutfield and Kaichi Kida for developing the excellent scientific program.

The science at this years meeting was stimulating with talks on Adiponectin, Ghrelin, Myostatin, FGF-23 in Hypophosphataemic disorders and a wonderful talk on how growth hormone induces a conformational twist of the growth hormone receptor to cause its intracellular events. There were 4 main clinical themes, growth hormone and IGF-1, disorders of puberty, insulin resistance and obesity, phenotype and genotype analysis (predominantly from our Japanese colleagues) including severe obesity, Bartter, Sotos, Kallman and Noonan syndromes.  The program included 5 symposia with 15 talks, 4 plenary speakers, Professors Kadowaki, Clayton, Mauras, and Sippell, and excellent oral and poster sessions.  We thank the plenary speakers very much for their contribution to the meeting both in their talks and informal discussions with participants. 

Similar to previous meetings, APPES held a fellows teaching course in a delightful venue on Awaji Island approximately 1 hour from Kobe in the 3 days prior to the scientific meeting.  The fellows meeting covered 8 paediatric endocrinology topics in an interactive format with presentations both by the fellows and faculty.  Evaluation of the meeting by the 38 fellows from 13 countries was very positive and we thank Professor Kida and the sponsors for the APPES scientific meeting for this unique learning experience.

Plans are well underway for our next biennial scientific meeting which will be held in Thailand, November 2nd-4th 2005.  The Thailand Paediatric Endocrine Society will host this meeting and should have secured the venue for both the scientific and fellows meeting before the end of this year.  Our next meeting will be held over 3 days and will include a significant component of paediatric diabetes, in addition to the broad areas of paediatric endocrinology that were discussed at this years meeting.  We look forward to your ideas for the meeting.  Please do not hesitate to contact either Professor Wayne Cutfield, scientific convenor at w.cutfield@auckland.ac.nz or Chris Cowell at chrisc@chw.edu.au with any ideas you may have regarding topics for the meeting.

Chris Cowell

15th November 2004