LAHORE, Oct 18: The ninth Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologist congress scheduled to be held at a local hotel from Nov 5 to 9 — the largest event ever to take place in Pakistan in the field of biochemistry and molecular biology — has been postponed.
The preparations were under way under the congress organizing committee chairman, Dr M Waheed Akhtar, director, Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of the Punjab.
In all, about 150 foreign scientists from 30 countries representing all continents of the world and more than 250 scientists from universities, research institutes and other organizations from within the country were scheduled to participate in the congress.
The important areas concerning national problems in the fields of health, agriculture, industry and environment were to be covered. Nobel laureates and other leading scientists in their respective fields were committed to contribute paper on various topics.
As many as eight plenary talks, 13 symposia, 12 colloquia and two poster sessions were included in the programme. Two workshops on biochemical education in medical curricula and genomics and bioinformatics were also scheduled.
Dr Waheed Akhtar said the congress would have provided an opportunity to the local scientists to interact with the leading scientists of the world and would have given an impetus to the development of scientific activities in the country.
He said all arrangements for the meeting to be held according to schedule had nearly been completed, but it was postponed due to the developments after the Sept 11 events as the congress delegates from across the world had shown reluctance to attend. However, he said the congress organizing committee was in constant touch with William H. Sawyer, the president, and other members of the FAOBMB executive committee of the federation. The executive committee is due to meet in Singapore on Nov 11 to discuss future plans.
The FAOBMB holds symposia every year and congress every third year. It has held eight congresses and 15 symposia so far in different member-countries regularly except for the ninth triennial congress, a major scientific event on the FAOBMB calendar scheduled to be held in Pakistan which will now take place at another appropriate time.
The Pakistan Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is one of the federa-tion’s active participants among its 20-member countries.—Muhammad Ashfaq