WHEN SPECTROSCOPY MEETS LIFE SCIENCES AND DRUG DISCOVERY

The 4th International Peptide Symposium was held at The Cairns Convention Centre in far north tropical Queensland from 21st to 25th October, 2007. The meeting, which had the overall theme “Discovery to Drugs: The Peptide Pipeline” was organised by the Australian Peptide Association and Profs. John Wade (Howard Florey Institute) and Ian Smith (Monash University) co-chaired the meeting. There were over 420 delegates from all parts of the world, with excellent support from the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, US and European peptide communities. In addition, three very successful specialist satellite meetings were held immediately prior to the Symposium. These focussed on Advances in Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis (Port Douglas, Chair John Wade), Chemical Protein Synthesis and Ligation (Heron Island, Chair, Paul Alewood) and Protein Misfolding (Dunk Island, Chair Kevin Barnham). These satellite meetings each attracted from 35 – 75 delegates.