Seven Nobel laureates and other famous scientists will discuss the latest developments in life science and bio-technology today in Beijing.

The seven Nobel laureates include Chinese-born Lee Tsung-dao, winner of the 1957 Nobel prize for physics, Robert Mundell, winner of the 1999 economic science prize, Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel, who shared the 1988 chemistry prize, Ferid Murad and Louis Ignarro, who shared the 1998 medicine prize, and Aaron Ciechanover, winner of the 2004 chemistry prize.

They have been invited by the Nobel Laureates Beijing Forum 2006, which is sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

This year, the theme of the forum is "Life Sciences and Human Health."

Longer life expectancy will put further pressure on life science and bio-technology research, said Lu Yongxiang, president of CAS, in a statement.

The topics of the scientists' speeches will include China's life science, healthcare, DNA research, new infectious diseases, anti-cancer drugs and even transgenic techniques.

The forum will be held in the Great Hall of the People from today to Thursday.

"The past two decades have provided many new tools to help us understand biology and turn this understanding into new treatments for human diseases," said Ernest Beutler of Scripps Research Institute of the United States, in his printed speech paper.

He will present the speech, entitled "the modern road to discovery in healthcare: a challenging journey" today.

Scientists from CAS will also speak on bird flu, cancer medicine and human genetic projects.

When fighting against bird flu and other new emerging infectious diseases, three aspects must be emphasized, Gao Fu, president of Institute of Microbiology, CAS, said in a statement.

These are stronger prevention and control measures, better public education and further basic scientific research.

Wang Xiaodong, director of National Institute of Biological Sciences and member of American Academy of Sciences, will present his cancer research findings on Wednesday afternoon.

The current cancer therapies mainly rely on surgical removal of tumor mass in combination with radiation and chemotherapy that induce cancer death through non-specific damage, Wang said in a speech extract.

The drawbacks of these methods are side effects caused by the death of normal growing cells and development of resistance to these treatments.

(China Daily 09/05/2006 page2)