The 2nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the GP-TCM consortium took place in Braga on 21st – 24th July 2011. The meeting gathered more than 50 beneficiary as well as non-beneficiary participants and started on 21st July with a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Symposium comprising 5 talks delivered by Professors Zhongzhen Zhao, Gerhard Franz, Jeremy Nicholson, Rudolf Bauer, and Jianping Liu, respectively. Their talks introduced TCM and Chinese herbal medicines, TCM related contents in European Pharmacopoeia, applications of systems biology in TCM research, as well as the state of the art of clinical and basic research of TCM and were hailed by participants as “a real highlight” of this year’s AGM. In addition, the colourful programme of the day also included poster exhibition, a TEST-GP discussion and an open debate entitled “TCM, phytomedicine and conventional medicine: How and where can they meet?”, where panellists Dr. Nuno Correia, Mrs. Dan Jiang, Prof. Olavi Pelkonen, and Prof. Elizabeth Mary Williamson shared their thoughts and perspectives with the audience.
The event continued with 2.5 days of closed-door WP private meetings and WP-focused workshops and interactive discussion sessions (22nd – 24th July 2011). During the WP-based presentation and discussion sessions, the presenters gave succinct overview of their WPs’ progress during the 2nd year, challenges experienced, and plans for the final year. Detailed discussions took place on a number of relevant issues during and after the WP presentations. Furthermore, the meeting participants benefited from dedicated discussion sessions on founding a Good Practice in Traditional Medicine Research” (GP-TMR) consortium to succeed GP-TCM, on launching a GP-TCM Special Issue in Journal of Ethnopharmacology and on updating Good Practice Guidelines for Scientific TCM Publications and the work of the SOP Panel.
2nd AGM Group Photo – Portugal
