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The Kick-off meeting of “WP8 – Functional Genomics in Studies of Acupuncture- Moxibustion and Meridians” was held on 31st October – 1st November 2009 in Beijing, China at NuoLin Hotel. The event was hosted by Capital Medical University of China, and organised by the WP8 coordinator Dr. Xiaomin Wang. The meeting attendees included six WP8 members, two WP6 members, and five invited specialist guests in relevant fields. In addition, a large group of graduate students and postdoctoral trainees from Capital Medical University joined the event as an audience during the open sessions of the meeting.
Dr. Xiaomin Wang announced the opening of the meeting and provided an overview of the FP7 GP-TCM project in his welcome speech. During the morning open sessions, the meeting attendees introduced themselves with the emphasis on their expertise and research interests as PowerPoint presentations. In the afternoon discussions, Dr. Huangan Wu and Dr. Wei Ding have reiterated and further explained the general strategy and specific aims of WP8 task proposals and work plans. This was followed by discussions on WP8 3-year plan with the focus on work package tasks and deliverables. After hours of constructive discussions involving many helpful and perspective suggestions, the members passed the final version of the WP8 work plan and have reach to an agreement on the task-related issues and work assignments. The group has collectively agreed that the web-based communication is very important for internal management and the WP8 webpage will be updated regularly to introduce the progress of Acupuncture-Moxibustion related topics. WP8 tasks related to the literature review and reports were also allocated. Embraced by the first snow in Beijing this year, Dr. Wolfgang Schwarz and Dr. Jin Xu had the opportunity to visit the Capital Medical University main campus and were also shown a number of laboratories after the kick-off meeting.
Front from left to right: Linpeng Wang, Jin Xu, Huangan Wu, Xiaomin Wang, Wolfgang Schwarz, Jianping Liu, Wei Ding; Back from left to right: Jun Jia, Hai Cui, Cunzhi Liu, Yong Tang, Xiaopeng Ma, Yunhua Cui
