Rotary Club - HK East Newsletter November 28th, 2007

President Laurence kicked off the meeting at 1:20pm with a warm welcome to all those present at the luncheon, including our guests Shirley Fan and Mimi Chiu from Hong Kong Shue Yan College and PP Loop Litmaath from the Rotary Club of Hong Kong.

President Laurence made an open invitation to members and their guests to a fireside gathering at his home on December 1st. Late afternoon tea, Karaoke and a "Basin Food" dinner would be some of the interesting activities. Please sign up if you have not done so already.

PP George gave members an update on the Hebei project. Launched in 2005, this project aims to support 150 girls from poor families for their entire primary education. The donation has been well spent. Many girls are already on their way to junior high. PP George showed some of the students' thank-you letters and recent report cards to the audience. You will see some of them enclosed in this newsletter and can also see the rest at the reception desk every time when you attend our regular luncheon.

On December 7, PP George would be hosting a day trip to his golf club in Zhongshan. The event would include a round of golf for golfers and facial/massages for non-golfers. Members and their guests would come back after dinner either on the 8:30 or 9:30pm ferry.

Secretary Norman, who acted as the Sergeant-at-Arms, happily reported a handsome collection of HK$1,000 for the day with 14 members attended.

PP John then brought us to the highlight of the meeting with his introduction of our speaker Ali Dignan. Ms Dignan is a registered nurse who received a bachelor of business communications degree from the Queensland University of Technology. After a few years of working in public relations and marketing for companies in HK, Ali decided to go back to nursing. She spent 6 years working at a private medical practice in Central. In December last year Ali took up a position with the Queensland institute of Medical Research (QIMR) to support the ground breaking research undertaken by the company for diseases and illnesses that primarily affect people in this part of the world.

Ali's topic was on Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Cancer (鼻咽癌).

Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma "NPC" is a virulent and often terminal cancer that attacks people of Asian descent, particularly those from Southern China and Hong Kong. The current treatment for NPC is chemotherapy and radiation which although is 75% effective does have debilitating side effects. NPC is one of the top five causes of cancer death and often kills people in the prime of their life - between the ages of 40 and 45 years. Children can also develop NPC. There are approximately 1000 new cases of NPC each year in Hong Kong and Southern China.

Scientists have discovered that 99% of patients with NPC have the Epstein Barr Virus (EBV). Some of the antigens of the EBV appear to be present on the surface of the tumor cells. Scientists have also discovered that by taking the lymphocytes (a type of immune cell) from the patients and training them to recognize these EBV and then injecting them back into the patient, they will specifically recognize and destroy the EBV tumour cells. The procedure is non-toxic and non-invasive and has few debilitating side effects.

Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR), HKU and Queen Mary Hospital are undertaking a trial study on 30 patients who have advanced NPC. Blood from HK NPC patients is being flown to Brisbane and processed within the facility at QIMR there. Immune cells from NPC patients will be grown to stimulate an immune response to EBV. Once the cells have grown to sufficient quantity, they will be transported back to HK where they will be delivered back to the same patient and will target the NPC tumor to shrink and destroy it. It is using the patients' own blood cells to destroy the cancer - basically the body's own immune system defending itself - hence the name immunotherapy.

At the conclusion of Ali's presentation, PP Stephen formally thanked Ali on behalf of our Club for her informative speech and wished her every success on the historical NPC trial study in Hong Kong.

For the benefit of the audience, Rtn Tony came to the rostrum to further elaborate on the potential link between NPC and eating salty fish as well as the symptoms of NPC on patients.

President Laurence thanked Rtn Tony for his elaboration and reminded our members to come next Wednesday as Professor Dennis Lam would be our speaker next week talking about eye care.

President Laurence closed the meeting at 2:00 pm by proposing a toast to RI coupled with Rotary Club of Hong Kong.

November is designated as The Rotary Foundation Month by Rotary International. Every year, our incumbent president has targeted a 10% of our membership to donate to The Rotary Foundation as a full Paul Harris Fellow or multiple PHF during the District Governor's official visit to the club.

The chairman of The Rotary Foundation of our club is PP Herbert Chan. In case you wish to contribute to become a PHF or multiple PHF, please contact him direct. It is very simple. You can pay by your credit card in order to save the trouble to purchase a US bank draft. Another easy way is to contact PDG Peter Hall and he shall do all the necessary work for you. It takes sometime for The Foundation to process your donation and to send you the recognition badge and folder. Please start to pay the US$1000 now to include your name within this Rotary year.

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4-Clan Rotary Clubs Joint Meeting

According to the announcement of President Laurence Chan that we shall have a joint lunch meeting with our sponsored Rotary clubs at the Regal Hong Kong Hotel on 5th December 2007 known as the 4-clan meeting. Details are being worked out to have a smooth gathering with all the clubs confirmed to participate. Questions have been put up by our members for explanation why we style it as a 4-clan meeting. Listed below is a full family tree chart of the clubs branched out by HK Island East for your information.

Original Club	Sponsored by	Chartered	Founder President
HK Island East	H.K. Club	6th April 1954	John Yuen
HK South	HK Island East	30th May 1973	Dennis Ting
HK North	HK Island East	16th Sept. 1978	Rocky Sze
HK Northeast	HK Island East	19th Sept.1983	Moses Cheng
HK Harbour	HK Island East	25th Mar. 1987	Patrick Poon
HK City North	HK North	29th Sept. 1987	T.O. Yip
HK Bayview	HK Northeast	16th Apr. 1994	Lawrence Lam
Causeway Bay	HK City North	21st Nov. 1995	Stephen Hui
Bayview Sunshine	HK Bayview	13th Mar. 1996	Alvina Lam
Happy Valley	HK Northeast	23rd Oct. 1996	Julian Liew
Quarry Bay	HK South	5th Apr. 1995	Jacques Tschudin

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2007 Rotary Institute

A Rotary Institute will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 30th November to 2nd December 2007 in Shangri-La Hotel, 11 Jalan Sulltan Ismail. The Rotary Institute is open to all Rotary members and their guests. Those members who have never been to a Rotary Institute, especially new members should try their best to attend to widen your Rotary knowledge. Please contact our Hon. Secretary Norman Lee for registration as soon as possible.


PP Tim, Speaker - Ali Dignan - Pres. Laurence	Hon. Sec. Norman Lee, PE Andy Wong & PP Joop Limaath from Rotary Club of HK


(L to R) Rtn. Jason Chiu, AG Eddy Wong, Rtn. Kenny Chan, PP George Leung & PP Hubert Chan	(L to R) PP Stephen Liu, Shirley Fan & Mimi Chiu from Shue Yan University & PP Rudy


PP George Leung reported the Hebei Mountain girl students project receiving a lot of thank you letters from the students	Group Picture with members & visiting guests.