The Eighth Asian Bioethics Conference (ABC2007)

ABC2007 Blog

July 18, 2007 The powerpoint files of the papers presented at the conference can be found here. Please refer to the conference program for navigation.

March 29, 2007 -- I would like to thank everybody very much for making the Eightht ABC an unqualified success. Close to two hundred people participated in the five-day conference and there were many "survivors" who took group photos together at the closing session. Let us meet again in Indonesia next year for the Ninth Conference. For details about the next conference please contact Darryl Macer. Meanwhile we will post the presentation files from the conference. We have already posted the Conference Abstracts Book.

February 16, 2007 -- Onsite registration will be available on Sunday, March 18, 2007 at Century Park Hotel from 1 pm to 6 pm. Registration desk will also be operational throughout the conference.

February 16, 2007 -- If you need an invitation letter for visa or other purposes, please write to Preeyanuch Panchim at ppreeyan@gmail.com. She will take over from me from now on.

February 13, 2007 -- New!!For those who will be presenting their papers at the conference, please send your PowerPoint files to my assistant at vajradhara_chula@yahoo.com at least one week prior to the conference. That is, the deadline for submitting Powerpoint files for presentation is March 12. This will ensure a smooth operation of the files. Thanks a lot for your cooperation.

As for publication, Darryl and I will publish a proceedings containing all the papers of the conference, which will come out after the conference itself. So we will make an announcement on this at the conference itself. Furthermore, other groups will also have their own publication policies. The CEST also has a plan to publish our own set of selected publication. Authors whose papers are selected will be contacted by the editors of the publications directly.

January 30, 2007 -- The tentative program of the conference has been uploaded. Note that this file has been superseded by the more updated file here.

January 29, 2007 -- For those who would like to book their rooms at the nearby Ibis Hotel, I just got a deal from the hotel for a very special discount rate which is cheaper than through the Internet. Please write to salescorpo1@ibisthailand.com and tell Khun Min, who is sales representative of Ibis, that you are attending the ABC2007 and would like to book a room there for a special rate. Her office number is +66(0)2308-7899.

January 29, 2007 -- The rate for late registration has been announced. Late registration fees will take effect on March 1, 2007 at midnight, Thailand Standard Time (GMT +7). Please see below for more information. The form for late registration will be posted on this website on March 1.

January 24, 2007 -- It's been an awfully long time since I updated this blog, and perhaps you guess correctly the reason why. I have been very busy communicating with the participants of the conference and preparing the program of the Conference. The program is almost ready now and should be able to be uploaded on this website in the next few days. Please check back to this website often.

January 24, 2007 -- I have some good news. The conference organizer has made an agreement with GuarantService (guarantservice@yahoo.com) to arrange for pick up from the Suvarnabhumi Airport to the Century Park Hotel and back. Please check for their service at this link. Note that this service is for the convenience of the conference participants only, and their service charges are not included in the registration fees. So please pay for the service by yourself. For more information please mail to the address just mentioned, or to Teerawut Watana, proprietor of GuarantService himself, at teerawutwat@hotmail.com. His mobile phone number is +66(0)81-441-2718.

January 24, 2007 -- Another thing is that those of you who are interested in participating in the conference, please register and book your hotel rooms as soon as possible. This is a word from the Century Park Hotel: Rooms are really limited and will be available only on first-come, first-served basis. There is a distinct possibility that rooms will be filled up around the time of the conference, so if you have not done so now please book your room as soon as possible. Click this link for the reservation form that you need to fill up and send to the hotel. If you can't get a room at the Century Park, please book your room at the nearby Ibis Hotel. (Details on this website - see below). And in this neighborhood there are only these two hotels within walking distance of each other.

January 24, 2007 -- The same goes with the registration. The rate posted on this website is now only the advance registration rate, which will end on February 28, 2007. Beginning at midnight, March 2, 2007 (Thailand time), the rate for late registration will be activated instead. Believe me, this will be higher than the advance rate. So act now. The late registration fees will be posted tomorrow or the day after at the latest. We will also post the onsite registration rate, which is payable only in cash in Thai Baht at the conference site, at the same time as when we post the late fees rate. Onsite registration fees should be about the same as the late rate.

December 1, 2006 -- Due to popular demand, the deadline for submission of abstracts to the conference has been extended to December 31st.

November 13, 2006 -- Papers submitted to and presented at the ABC2007 will be considered for publication in a variety of journals and books. For example, UNESCO Bangkok expects to publish some of the papers in its Ethics Series books, and in addition Darryl Macer edits the Eubios: Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, which is another publication option. Furthermore, selected papers will be published there. The CEST also plans to publish another group of selected papers in a book volume, tentative entitled Bioethics and Culture: Selected Papers from the Eighth Asian Bioethics Conference. Please stay tuned for more news about publications resulting from this exciting conference, and if you have not done so already, please send your abstract to me at s.hongladarom@gmail.com.

November 13, 2006 -- Another thing is that we are searching for funds so that people whose papers are well qualified but are unable to travel to Thailand on their own would be enabled to do so. So in order to be eligible, in case we got the funds, please send your abstract to us before the deadline and please indicate in one or two paragraphs why you actually need the fund. Thanks.

November 13, 2006 -- Those who have submitted their abstracts before September 11, 2006, when the server of this website crashed, are strongly urged to submit their abstracts again before the Nov. 30 deadline. Please accept my apologies for this mishap.

November 2, 2006 -- The reservation form for Century Park Hotel has been posted. In the form you will find the special rate (in Thai Baht) offered by the hotel. Please fill up the form and send it back to the hotel at your convenience. Please refer to this website to convert Thai Baht into your own currency.

October 30, 2006 -- The venue of the conference is at the Century Park Hotel. All participants are encouraged to book a room at this hotel directly. Please note that we do not have the service of reserving a room for you. When you contact the hotel please tell them that you are participating at the 8th Asian Bioethics Conference to qualify for their special rates.

Overview

The first Asian Bioethics Conference (ABC) was held in Beijing in 1995 at the time of the creation of the East Asian Bioethics Association. Among the key members in the founding of the Association were Profs. Hyakudai Sakamoto, Qiu Ren Zong and Song Sang Yong. The Asian Bioethics Association was founded in 1997 at the time of the UNESCO Asian Bioethics Conference in Kobe, Japan, with the aim of promoting the study of bioethics in Asia as well as to emphasize the important role that bioethics in Asia plays in the global dialogue on the topic. The Conference has been held in Beijing, Kobe, Tokyo, Seoul, Tsukuba, Sanfiurfa (Turkey), and the seventh ABC was held in conjunction with the Eighth World Congress of Bioethics in Beijing, China from August 6 to 9, 2006, and Chulalongkorn University has been honored by the Asian Bioethics Association to hold the eighth ABC in March 19 to 23, 2007.

The ABC has been an important focal point for scholars and professionals from a large variety of disciplines to meet and share their insights on a wide range of topics related to bioethics and to those disciplines that deal with science, society and culture. Although the title of the conference is Asian Bioethics this does not mean that those who participate in the conferences are only from Asia. The Conference has been global from its beginning, and a large number of participants came from many countries around the world.

The theme for the eighth ABC is "Biotechnology, Culture and Human Values in Asia and Beyond". The rapid advances in biotechnology, including biomedical technologies, have created a wide variety of ethical problems, many of which were not even conceivable only a few years ago. These advances, when interacting with the specific cultural contexts such as those in Asia and other regions, have also created a different, though related, set of problems, such as how one should regard one's own cultural tradition in relation to these advances and others. Hence there is an intricate web of relations among biotechnology, culture and human values that the Conference is dedicated to exploring. Moreover, this web of relations does not limit itself to Asia, but in today's closely interwoven world, Asia cannot stand alone or exclude itself; neither can the other regions of the world. Thus this is all the more rationale for increasing collaboration among the various cultures and regions of the world.

Call for Papers

Papers are being called that deal with any topics in bioethics and related disciplines. The following is a list of topics that have been presented in previous ABC meetings; however, papers do not have to fall directly into one or more of these topics are certainly welcome.

Many papers can be grouped in a panel, which enhance their visibility, among other things. Prospective paper presenters might want to consider a range of panels that are available at the conference.

Please send an extended abstract of no more than 2,500 words, as an email attachment, to the conference secretariat before the deadline below.

Important Dates

Main Organizer

Institutional Partners

International Advisory Board

Local Organizing Committee

Registration

The organizing committee has agreed to set the following rates as registration fees:

Beginning March 2, 2007, the rate for late registration will take effect. Here is the table for late registration fees:

We will also have services for onsite registration. You can pay for the registration at the site of the conference in Thai Baht only, according to the following rate:

Members of the Asian Bioethics Association are entitled to a 20% discount of all the categories in the fees tables above. Only active members at the time of registration are entitled to the discount. So if you are not already a member, please go to the ABA website and contact Darryl Macer, the Secretary of the ABA Board, to apply.

For information about currency exchange, please refer to this website. More information, such as how to transfer the fees and so on, will posted on this page on October 15, 2006.

Accommodation

The Local Organizing Committee has set the Century Park Hotel to be the venue of the conference. All participants are urged, though not required, to book a room at this hotel. However, this hotel is quite a distance from the other hotels posted on this website before, so you might have to catch a taxi to travel to Century Park if you stay at other hotels. We have concluded a special rate with Century Park and will post the rates here very soon.

An alternative accommodation choice is the Ibis Hotel, which is located only a few meters from the Century Park. Here is their information:

Normal Participants from an OECD country	200 US dollars
Normal Participants from a non-OECD country	100 US dollars
Student Participants from an OECD country	100 US dollars
Student Participants from a non-OECD country	50 US dollars

Normal Participants from an OECD country	260 US dollars
Normal Participants from a non-OECD country	130 US dollars
Student Participants from an OECD country	130 US dollars
Student Participants from a non-OECD country	65 US dollars

Normal Participants from an OECD country	9000 Thai Baht
Normal Participants from a non-OECD country	4500 Thai Baht
Student Participants from an OECD country	4500 Thai Baht
Student Participants from a non-OECD country	2250 Thai Baht

The Eighth Asian Bioethics Conference

Biotechnology, Culture, and Human Values in Asia and Beyond

March 19-23, 2007, Century Park Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

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