NIAAA director Dr. T.-K. Li (l) and Dr. Jong-Koo Lee, director general of the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, hold copies of the letter of intent signed by both to increase cooperation in biomedical research between the two countries.

As part of ongoing collaborative efforts by NIAAA with Asia/Pacific rim countries, institute staff helped organize and participated in recent back-to-back meetings in Japan and South Korea, signing a letter of intent with South Korean scientists to cooperate in research. The joint activities highlighted the mutual interests of scientists in all three countries in investigating the health effects of alcohol.

NIAAA director Dr. T.-K. Li gave the opening lecture at the International Symposium on Alcoholic Liver and Pancreatic Diseases and Cirrhosis, part of the annual Asian Pacific Digestive Diseases Week that took place recently in Kobe, Japan. The director of NIAAA’s Division of Metabolism and Health Effects, Dr. Samir Zakhari, was a co-organizer of the symposium and chaired a session on oxidant stress and inflammation; NIAAA intramural scientist Dr. Bin Gao gave a talk on innate immunity and alcoholic liver fibrosis. At the meeting, Li received an award from the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology citing his extensive and long-term contributions to addressing the adverse health consequences of alcohol.

In Seoul, South Korea, the Korean National Institute of Health and the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDCP) sponsored a workshop on alcohol disease and policy. NIAAA scientific staff gave several presentations. The workshop culminated in the signing by Li and Jong-Koo Lee, director general of the KCDCP, of a letter of intent to increase cooperation in the fields of biomedical and behavioral research.

NIAAA has signed letters of intent in recent years with scientific centers in both Japan and China to collaborate in a variety of scientific areas related to alcohol use. One reason these collaborations are important to all countries involved is that the profile of genetically determined alcohol- metabolizing liver enzymes in Asian and European populations is different. Liver enzymes are known to play a role in the risk of developing alcoholism and in the health effects seen as a result of consuming alcohol. The range of shared scientific activities outlined in the letters of intent—conferences, exchanges and training of scientists and shared technology and research projects—will address this and other areas of mutual interest.