This is the second in a series of articles about my recent trip to China. Visiting China has been a long-time goal of mine. In the winter of 1960, when my wife and I were in high school, we edited a special edition of a school magazine called Vanguard. The topic was China and its rise in the world. I must say that we were quite prescient. Even then we could see how important China was going to be for the future of America and the world. But no one could have predicted that China would turn towards the free market system to fuel its economic growth, or that it would soon challenge the US, in a peaceful way, to leadership in many areas.

It was our great good fortune to be invited to come to China recently, thus fulfilling a life-long dream. It was even more fortunate to be treated as a V.I.P. everywhere I went, and to receive guest professorships at three distinguished medical institutions (see previous newsletter).

I would like to acknowledge everyone who showed us kindness on this trip, but unfortunately the list is too long and my memory is too faulty. However, let me tell you in outline where I went, whom I met, and what I saw.

We arrived in Guangzhou - the city known in the West as Canton - on Sept. 21. We were met at the airport by Jessica Tang and Ray, two employees of the SPDT company, which is conducting studies of a new form of treatment called "sonodynamic therapy." We were taken to the Garden Hotel, where we were to stay while in Guangzhou. Even on the drive from the airport we could see the incredible building boom going on in China. The Garden is a deluxe hotel and it is rather breathtaking in its splendor. Those of us who grew up with tales of Chinese poverty have to be amazed at the amount of wealth that some people in China have now attained.

We rendezvoused with Doug Mitchell, PhD, a chemist who is former chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He was visiting China at the same time. Doug speaks Chinese and was very helpful to us in getting acclimatized. We also met with Ms. Lucy Li, general manager of EEC Bio-tech (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., a forward-thinking business person who was primarily responsible for arranging our trip, and Wang Xiaohuai, MD, of the Oncology Department of Guangzhou Yu Hao Hospital. I had previously met Dr. Wang and Ms. Li at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago in June, and so it was great to see them again.

On the following day, we were taken to the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. For those of us accustomed to "TCM" as a very minor subspecialty peripheral to conventional medicine it comes as something of a shock to see whole universities devoted to researching, teaching and using this form of medicine. I was told that every province in China has a traditional medicine university. We were given an excellent presentation by the staff of the hospital, including the director and her senior scientists. I met with Zhou Dai-Hang, MD, the chief professor at the University, who is also chairman of the Cancer Association of China Traditional Medicine Association. I also met with Lizhu Lin, the professor and chief doctor in the Department of Oncology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and many other doctors.

Dr. Lizhu Lin is in the foreground, to the left of Dr. Ralph Moss

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This was followed by a sumptuous banquet at a nearby restaurant (every one in China seemingly shows their appreciation of your visit by fêting you with delicious food!) We then went to visit the Friendship Hospital in a distant quarter of Guangzhou. (This is a city of about 10 million people, and so it takes a while to get from one side of the city to the other.) There I received the first of my visiting professorships from Manziang Xu, president of the hospital, as well as the affiliated Friendship Retirement Apartments and Elderly Star Plaza. He is also deputy chairman of the Social Welfare Service Association and a member of the province’s hospital association. They have built a SPDT (sonotherapy) facility at this hospital.

After a tour of the retirement village (where an elderly gentleman was kind enough to let us tour his own neat apartment) we went to the out-of-the-way, but memorable, restaurant for another banquet in a private room overlooking the river.

On the following day we were taken to the Guangzhou Military Hospital. As I explained in my last newsletter, Dr. Wang is a general in the People’s Liberation Army. I was scheduled to give a speech here and it was exciting to see a poster announcing this lecture, with my picture and name, all over the hospital grounds. We also toured the SPDT facility here. Dr. Wang, as a senior oncologist, actually lives at this hospital. Dr. Wang and I both spoke, and the talks were well received. That evening we had dinner with guests from the hospital. We had an especially frank discussion of various topics. For instance, I enjoyed talking to Demao Yang, PhD, the chief scientist of Shenzhen Zhongxing Yangfan Biotech Co., Ltd. Dr. Yang had spent many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is doing remarkable work on the therapeutic use of immune cells. One of their lead products is a cell-based immunotherapy for hematopoiesis. Dr. Yang is not only fluent in English and Chinese, but was especially helpful to me in understanding the cultural and political differences between the two cultures.

NEXT WEEK - A TRIP TO XI’AN

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

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