Dr. Hangming Yang Receives Distinguished Career in Science Award at 2013 Bridge Medical Summit

By David Li and Dongyu Chen, bostonese.com

Nov. 8, 2013, — Started two years ago by doctors and researchers at American Chinese Medical Association (ACMA), Bridge Medical Summit (BMS) has become a new Fall tradition in Boston’s medical district. This year’s BMS has been successfully held at Boston Children’s Hospital on Oct. 26. With focuses on Medical Education, Cancer Prevention & Screening, Genetics and Proteomics as well as Healthcare Issues in the US and China, BMS III has interpreted complicated medical language into presentations and speeches that could be understood by the public.

Group picture at evening reception.

In Cancer Prevention & Screening section, four medical practitioners talked about lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and GI track cancer, including their genetic and environmental causes, current screening method and treatment. Interestingly, all the speakers mentioned that personal lifestyle play a role in cancer prevention, routine body examination is also helpful to discover diseases timely.

In Genetics and Proteomics section, a well-known speaker drew much attention by giving a passionate speech. He was one of the participants in Human Genome Project (HGP) whose organization-BGI shared about 1% of work in this global project 10 years ago. Dr. Huanming Yang mentioned his organization’s work in converting complex human genome to readable “codes” and the cloning technique to accelerate disease research. Furthermore, he talked about his short term goal of sequencing a person’s whole genome with the expense of one dollar. After his speech, audience was active in asking questions and taking photos with him. One of the audiences mentioned he came especially for Dr. Yang’s speech, however enjoyed more speeches than expected in this year’s BMS.

In Healthcare Issues section, multiple chairpersons led the discussion of medical issues faced by both US and China. As we all know, our average life span has be increasing over time from less than 40 years to around 80 years. Among the many factors, good medical care is of vital importance in longevity. According to data, in 2010, average life span in China was 74.83. While nowadays in Massachusetts, it is 91.58. Aging of the population, both in the US and in China, has led to greater medical expenses. According to the speakers, the biggest issue of the US healthcare system was the uncontrolled spending that burdens the working population, while issues in China are more complex such as the hostile relationship between doctors and patients, and the difficulty of visiting a popular doctor. There was also a PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) program discussed and interested by people, which aims at building a community-based healthcare system and providing long-term service to the elderly in the US, to provide humanity care at the same time to cut medical expenses.

The evening reception was at the upscale Harvard Club of Boston near Kenmore Square. The board of the ACMA presented the prestigious Distinguished Career in Science Award to Hangming Yang, Ph.D., and Community Service Award to Bill Lian, MD, Ph.D.. Distinguished Leadership Award went to Xiaoduo Fan, MD, Ph.D., Wenyu Song, Ph.D., Shuanhu Zhou, Ph.D and Fei Gu, MD,Ph.D.. Five people were awarded the Dedication Award. They were hostess of the recpetion Jian Ni, Pharm. D., Le Yi, MD, Ph.D., Pingping Kuang, MD, Ph.D., Jinhong Liu, MD, and Zeyu Xiao, Ph.D.

Distinguished Service Award went to Qian Huang. Zhenhua Lai received Talent Award. Harvard Medical School Chinese Scientists and Scholars Association (HMS-CSSA) received Special Recognition Award for its distinguished contribution to BMS III.