The 21st International Vascular Biology Meeting (IVBM) 2020 is set to kick off in Korea on September 9 at the Conrad Hotel Seoul, conference organizers from the Korean Society of Lipid and Atherosclerosis (KSoLA) said Saturday.

Speculation arose as to whether the conference would be cancelled or postponed due to the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) this year with the IVBM 2020 organizing committee co-president Professor Kim Hyo-soo from Seoul National University Hospital noting that “we are facing unprecedented challenges while trying to cope with the global COVID-19 crisis” and that “the top priority of the organizing committee is the health and safety of friends, colleagues, and potential attendees.”  

Despite the coronavirus fears, organizing committee co-president Professor Koh Gou-young from KAIST/IBS announced that “nothing has changed with the plans to hold the conference as planned” back in March.

According to the KSoLA, IVBM 2020 will be packed with lectures from prominent speakers from around the globe, including plenary lectures by University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Professor Donald M. McDonalds, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine Professor Ralf H. Adams, University of Helsinki Professor Kari K. Alitalo, and University of Pennsylvania Professor Mark L. Kahn, among others.

IVBM is an international vascular-biology conference with a 40-year old history that opens every two years around the globe. Each conference draws about 2,000 doctors, professors, and researchers from 40 countries, according to the KSoLA.