In accordance with the decision of the International Advisory Committee of Asianalysis VI held in Japan, Hong Kong Baptist University was honored to be selected as the host of the 2003 Asianalysis conference. Previous conferences were held in Tokyo, Japan (1991), Changchun, PRC (1993), Seoul, Korea (1995), Fukuoka, Japan (1997), Xiamen, PRC (1999) and Tokyo, Japan (2001). Because of the outbreak of the SARS in this region in the summer of 2003, the conference was postponed to 28–31 July 2004 and held in Hong Kong. The Asianalysis VII conference attracted close to 500 participants from 26 different countries or regions within Asia, Europe, and North America. This high level of participation was in large part due to the quality of the scientific program, which consisted of plenary lectures, mini-symposia, and general topics in diverse areas of analytical sciences. The three mini-symposia covered current ‘‘hot’’ topics in analytical sciences of special interest to participants: (1) chemical analysis of herbal medicines; (2) environmental and field analysis; and (3) ultrasensitive and ultrasmall volume analysis. A major attraction of this conference were the plenary lectures given by four prominent, world-class scientists—Professor Daniel Armstrong (Iowa State University), Professor Michael Gross (Washington University), Professor Toshio Yanagida (Osaka University), and Professor Edward Yeung (Iowa State University). In these four plenary lectures a common theme was found linking research and development in analytical chemistry to the life sciences. Clearly, research which deals with subjects such as genomics, proteomics, and nano-bioscience are hot topics in the 21st century, and our four plenary speakers enlightened us on the significance and power of mixing frontier analytical chemistry with the biological sciences (Fig. 1). To add attraction to the conference, a number of renowned scholars from the region delivered keynote speeches. Notably, the retired President of Tokyo Metropolitan University and the Chair of Asianalysis VI, Professor Toshiyuki Hobo and four Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professors HongYuan Chen, Erkang Wang, Ruqi Yu, and Yukui Zhang delivered keynote lectures in their research fields. In addition, editors/associate editors of many prestigious international journals—Professor Paul Haddad (associate editor of Anal. Chim. Acta), Professor Shigeru Terabe (associate editor of J. Chromatogr. A), Professor Kiyokatsu Jinno (editor of Anal. Bioanal. Chem.) and Professor Hitoshi Watarai (editor of Anal. Sci.)—came to join the event and delivered scientific talks. Special sessions for oral presentations by postgraduate students were organized. On the basis of academic merit the organizing committee offered a total of forty fellowships to selected postgraduate students of nine nationalities. Full fellowship covered registration fee, 4 days of accommodation expenses, and a travel allowance of HK$1000. Sixteen young scholars received the full fellowship and the others were awarded partial fellowship support. We are grateful for sponsorship by Springer (publisher of Anal. Bioanal. Chem.), by Analytical Science, and by the Chinese Journal of Chromatography, which enabled us to establish seven Poster Awards to be offered to the presenters of seven posters of high quality (Fig. 2). The judging panel, comprising Professors K. Jinno, H. Wataria, and Yu-kui Zhang, and Dr Terry S.M. Wan, who deliberated before making the Award, concurred that the scientific content of many of the poster presentations was indeed very high. A list of the seven award winners:
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Jan 1, 2005
Philip D Harvey 
Open Access
