The establishment of the Asian office of the Laboratory Automation and Screening Association
The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) recently announced that the organization has established a membership office in Shanghai, China, and simultaneously announced the date and location of the 2012 SLAS conference.
The SLAS is a non-profit scientific organization comprising two sub-associations: the Molecular Biosciences Association (SBS) and the Laboratory Automation Technology Association (ALA). The SLAS headquarters is located in Danbury, Connecticut. As part of SLAS, the SBS focuses on new drug development and related standards. Established in 1994, the SBS provides seminars for information exchange and education in the global chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and agricultural drug sectors. Members of the SBS come from many influential research institutions, universities, and pharmaceutical companies, including the National Cancer Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, government agencies and organizations, as well as leading enterprises in the field of new drug development.
Michelle Palmer, Chair of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, said: "SLAS has an important core customer base in Asia that continues to grow. Our strategic plan clearly recognizes the importance of establishing and maintaining a truly international user base. In fact, this requires our association to establish localized professional customer service teams in different regions to address communication and service barriers caused by regional time differences."
The SLAS Asia office is a team of five professional staff led by Administrative Manager Sarah Xiao. The office is located at Room 2302, Cohen International Center, No. 66 North Shaanxi Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai, postal code 200041. Phone: 86(21)51081513. The plan includes strengthening educational services for members in the Asia region, making it easier for members to participate in SLAS activities in Asia. This also includes launching a Chinese SLAS.org website before the end of 2011, which will be accessible from the SLAS.org homepage.
In addition, the 2012 SLAS Asia Conference will be held at the Grand Hyatt Jin Mao in Shanghai from June 19 to 21, 2012, with an expected attendance of 350 participants and 50 exhibiting companies. The exhibition booths will feature educational topics such as drug discovery technology, stem cells and drug discovery, and discussions on drug discovery from screening to treatment. Two short courses on relevant topics will also be organized before the conference, with specific topics yet to be determined. The educational content of the 2012 SLAS Asia Conference and pre-conference courses was drafted by a volunteer team of SLAS in Shanghai, namely the Scientific Advisory Committee of this conference: Mike Zhang (Chair) from BD Company, Xin Xie from the National New Drug Screening Center at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ying Yang from Teng Quan Biotechnology, and Zhong Zhong from GlaxoSmithKline.
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