Yogyakarta – Prof. Lawrence Young  is a well established senior scientist focusing research in Epstein-Barr virus with long list of publication (see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=young+LS+and+EBV) dated as long as 3 decades ago.

Prof. Lawrence is currently Vice Chancellor at University of Warwick, UK, and previously scientist at University of Birmingham UK. On 17th March 2016, he visited UGM for signing collaborative document between two universities. During his visit, the Faculty of Medicine UGM was honoured to host his lecture and discussion titled ” EBV and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC): pathogenesis and theraupetic”. During the talk, Prof. Lawrence discussed the update of EBV-NPC studies from basic to translational research. Based on research done by EBV group at Birmingham University, the dysregulation at hedgehog signalling pathway. Further, by this knowledge, with collaboration with a pharmaceutical company experimental drug using SMO inhibitor was shown to be able to sensitize EBV-infected carcinoma cells to cisplatin.

Additionally, during discussion between Prof. Young and EBV-NPC research team at Faculty of Medicine UGM/ Dr. Sardjito general Hospital, we could identified fields of future collaboration worth to follow up. [by Jajah Fachiroh, PhD]