Cold Spring Harbor Sets Up New Branch In Suzhou

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory launched an Asian campus on April 6 in Suzhou, China, marking the establishment of CSHL's only subsidiary outside the U.S. Nearly 320 scientists attended the inaugural event, which was followed by a five-day "James Watson Symposium on Cancer." The symposium drew a diverse group of speakers mainly from Asia, Europe, and North America.

Although CSH Asia will not perform actual research functions, it will serve as a conference center for world-class scientific meetings, which falls in line with Long Island, N.Y.-based CSHL's long-standing reputation as a prestigious meeting organizer.

"I hope what Cold Spring Harbor has done for the West, this will do for Asia," said Bruce Stillman, president of CSHL.

"It will be a great opportunity for inviting people to worry about the great problems of the world," said Nobel Laureate James D. Watson when giving a speech in his eponymous auditorium that had been built just in time for the conference. Watson codiscovered the DNA double-helix structure in 1953 and served as the director and subsequently president and chancellor of CSHL for almost 40 years. He had a hand in initiating the Asia program and worked closely with Maoyen Chi, chief executive officer of CSH Asia, to set up the Suzhou branch.

China's minister of health, Chen Zhu, also congratulated CSH Asia on its launch via a pretaped video.

Located within an hour's drive west of Shanghai, Suzhou, which is traditionally known for silk embroidery, has now become one of China's booming seedbeds for bio- and nanotechnology companies. It accounts for 2.3% of China's gross domestic product even though less than 0.5% of the country's population calls it home.

Registration fees for the center's inaugural symposium ranged from $1,600 for corporate personnel to $1,075 for graduate students, including housing and food during the conference. "I am hoping registration fees go down a little for graduate students so that they can really take advantage of such high-level academic events in the future," said Shi Yigong, dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University, in Beijing, and a former Princeton University professor.

This year, the Suzhou campus is scheduled to host 10 more symposia and one summer school program, with topics ranging from neuroscience to membrane protein structure to stem cell research. Apart from CSH Asia, CSHL also co-organizes academic meetings in Cambridge, England, together with the Wellcome Trust, a London-based independent charity that mainly supports biomedical research.