HONG KONG—Developmental biologists in Asia have taken steps to forge a closer scientific community in recent months.

A pan-Asian network, first envisioned by Eddy De Robertis of the University of California, Los Angeles, has now been realized by a handful of scientists based in the region's top research institutes and universities.

Committee members of the Asia Pacific Developmental Biology Network, or APDBN, met during the Asia Pacific Developmental Biology Research Symposium hosted by the Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists in early November.

Many of the organizing committee members were also speakers at the symposium held in Kobe, Japan. "It's fair to say both meetings intended to foster discussion and personal contact by developmental biologists in the region," said Doug Sipp, communications manager of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (RIKEN CDB), also in Kobe.

Sipp is the network's new secretary-treasurer, while Masatoshi Takeichi, who heads RIKEN CDB, is the chairman....

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