By Dr Amir Fuad Hussain

Guest of Honour, Yg Amat Berbhg Toh Puan Datuk Aishah Ong, Pro-Chancellor, University of Malaya on the left meets with other officials at the event

Participants at the Symposium

Speakers and officials in a group photograph

The University of Malaya Research Imaging Symposium was held on 18-19 February 2004 at the Petaling Jaya Hilton. It was well attended with a total of 88 participants, ranging from radiologists, medical physicists, clinicians and other professionals in the field of biomedical imaging. This 2-day symposium presented an overall view of the requirements and research opportunities in biomedical imaging. It is also hoped that this symposium will pave the way for the University of Malaya to establish the University of Malaya Research Imaging Centre. This centre aims to support and facilitate research and training of researchers in biomedical imaging and takes the lead in interdisciplinary research, form partnerships with industries and to coordinate with other government agencies to translate fundamental discoveries into applications, and to encourage and support the development of relevant standards and guidelines in biomedical imaging research.

This symposium was officiated by Yang Amat Berbahagia Toh Puan Datuk Dr Aishah Ong, Pro-Chancellor, University of Malaya who also delivered the keynote address entitled “Modern Imaging; The Road To Better Healthcare Through Research”. In her keynote address, Toh Puan Aishah mentioned that it is imperative that Malaysia has an organisation to provide the leadership, focus and coordination and training in imaging research . Strategic interdisciplinary partnerships must be formed in order for Malaysia to position itself in the exciting field of biomedical imaging research. She also mentioned the hope that greater international support and links for future collaborative research related to biomedical imaging be developed.

The other guests of honour gracing the event were University of Malaya’s Vice Chancellor, Yang Berbahagia Dato’ Professor Hashim Yaacob and University of Malaya’s Dean of the Medical Faculty, Yang Berbahagia Professor Dato’ Mohd. Amin Jalaludin. In Professor Dato’ Amin’s lecture entitled “University of Malaya’s Vision for Research Imaging”, he mentioned that there is currently no coordinated biomedical imaging research programme in Malaysia and despite its prominence in other more developed countries, it is not considered a priority area under Intensification of Research Priority Areas (IRPA). This may result in a lag behind Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore where this type of initiative has been in place for the last several years. He also mentioned that the establishment of a research imaging centre will help in training a pool of basic and clinical scientists in imaging research methods and disciplines for this purpose.

Speakers included research experts in the field of biomedical imaging, including, Professor Gary Fullerton, from University of Texas in San Antonio, Texas, USA, who provided the participants an account of his experience in Texas, USA in setting up a research imaging centre. Dr King CP Li from National Institute of Health, Maryland, USA talked about the current trends and future prospects of imaging research. Professor Rodney Hicks from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, University of Melbourne, Australia, spoke on the technology of Positron Emission Tomography. Local speakers also included Professor Iekhsan Othman, Professor Ng Kwan Hoong and Associate Professor Basri Johan Jeet Abdullah from University of Malaya.