ICP'96 Vienna Austria - A Royal Success
Whether judged by the venue - The Hofburg Palace of
Emperor Franz Joseph - or the program - a high caliber, across-the-spectrum snapshot of photobiology and photomedicine in 1996, the quadrennial meeting was a fantastic success. This meeting attained the
highest ever attendance (almost 900 registrants) and the greatest number of presentations (more than 600 lectures, symposium presentations, open presentations and posters). In the presidential lecture Francesco Dall'Acqua (Padova)
describe new aspects of
psoralen photobiology - focusing on apoptosis and non-DNA damage induced by psoralen photoadducts. Two Finsen Lectures were given. In the first Doug Brash (New Haven)
described the important role of p53 tumor suppressor mutations in the
development of skin
cancer. In the second, Thomas Schwartz (Munster) described the important
role of interleukins (especially IL-6) in cellular responses to UV radiation. These two lectures were generally
representative of the high quality of a vast majority of the sessions.
The ICP'96 meeting will be a benchmark against which all future meetings will be measured - the organizing committee led by Herbert Honigsmann and his colleagues (Robert Knobler and Franz Trautinger) deserve the highest accolades.
In addition all of the
auxiliary personnel, who manned the registration desk and helped visitors with many questions and requests, are to be complimented for their knowledge, courtesy and patience.
On the business side, the AIP council approved the application from American Society for Photobiology to host and organize the ICP in 2000 which will convene in San Francisco California in July of that year.
Frank Gasparro (New Haven) will lead the organizing committee. In 2000 the ASP will not hold its usual annual meeting, but rather will
team up with the ESP (and possibly other societies) for a multi-society photobiology meeting
to welcome the new millennium. Appropriately this ICP is being called Photobiology 2000.
On the non-scientific side Vienna was a very hospitable host offering many diversions during breaks
in the meeting schedule (especially all of Wednesday afternoon). By meeting in the first district, many fine restaurants were available for lunch and dinner
and the participants were constantly confronted with Vienna's uniqueness - the grandeur of Stephansplatz, the monument to the plague, the cobblestone streets and the clippity-clop of horse-drawn carriages.