President's Message

Dear Colleagues，

It is my honor and pleasure to be elected and to serve as the 19th President of The ASIAN PACIFIC ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF THE LIVER (APASL). This will be the second time since 1982 to have Hong Kong hosting the annual meeting for APASL.

With the success of the recent APASL annual meetings, organized by our Japanese and Korean colleagues, under the leadership of Professor Masao Omata and Dong Jin Suh, respectively, we believe that the upsurge momentum for the development of Clinical Hepatology in Asia - Pacific region, has been established. Hence, to organize the coming APASL annual meeting in 2009, will certainly represent a challenge as we hope that the development of research and service in clinical hepatology could be further facilitated to a next height.

On behalf of the APASL, I would like to invite all of you to attend our 19th annual conference, which will be conducted in Hong Kong SAR from 13th to 16th February, 2009. The theme of the conference will be “Multi-disciplinary Approach to Clinical Hepatology” and in keeping with this, we will organize a postgraduate course focusing on “ Interve ntional Hepatology”. Various medical and paramedical disciplines with interest in the clinical management of liver diseases will be attracted to our conference . In addition, we will also work closely with other sister associations such as the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), Latin American Association of Hepatology (ALEH) and the International Association for the study of the Liver (IASL).

Yours sincerely