At the High Altitude Pulmonary and Pathology Institute (IPPA) we had three previous successful meetings of Chronic Hypoxia in La Paz: http://zuniv.net/symposium/follow-up.html http://zuniv.net/symposium2/follow-up http://zuniv.net/symposium3/ During the second symposium the International Society of Chronic Hypoxia (ISCH), was created. Thanks to the coordination of Prof. Thuppil Venkatesh from St. John’s University in Bangalore, we have carried out under the direction of Prof. Shashi Bala Singh, Director of Defense Institute of physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), in New Dehli, India 9-12 August,2012, the GLOBAL HYPOXIA SUMMIT & 4TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CHRONIC HYPOXIA.
This has been a conference of interesting, stimulating and excellent presentations and discussions in a most friendly manner and at the highest level in search for “Promoting Quality of Health in Hypoxia”. Noteworthy was the presence of his excellency the Minister of State for Defense – Government of India M.M. Pallam Raju, who personally attended the opening ceremony and impressed us with his know-how as he is an Engineer keenly interested in scientific matters. The video of Dr. Zubieta’s speech is here Dr. Shashi Bala Singh Director of Dipas, focused on 4 types of approach: Physiological, Nutritional, Herbal and Technological. A unique blend in search of excellence.
We, the Zubietas, had the pleasure of finding old friends such as Peter Bartsch, with whom we had spent wonderful moments, many years back during high altitude meetings and particularly one in Odessa, Ukraine when invited by a most disntinguished friend and colleague, Dr. Tatiana Serebrovskaya. We also met our dear friend Dr. Vidyasagar Casikar, We also had the please of establishing close friendship with Jan-Marino Ramirez, Nanduri R. Prabhakar, Benedito H. Machado. We also interacted with Hari S. Sharma, Akpay Sarybaev, Uttam Pati, Zahid Ashraf, T. Norboo, Col G. Himashree, Anju Bansal, Nazan Dolu, Praveen Vats, AK Salhan, and many others with distinguished scientific presentations.
The students also impressed us most favorably for the quality of their work, and we foresee an even greater scientific future for India. The scientific program can be found here. In the opening ceremony, Dr. W. Selvamurthy gave a most interesting work , with a resume of the scientific strategies used, based on research of the Indian Armed forces that perform operations at very high apoints including 6000m of altitude. He exclaimed “DRDO stands tall as a beacon for research in stressful environments in order to enhance the quality of life of the Man behind the Machine at high altitude”, a very stimulating and essential concept.
Dr. Shasi Bala Singh, in turn, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Defense Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences, in such an outstanding ocassion, expressed ” DIPAS has been working in the field of military physiology for the past fifty years with the primary mandate of promoting human performance in extreme performance”. From our point of view, this trip to India was extraordinary. The science, the friends, the philosophy, were all just great.
We would like to announce that the 5th Chronic Hypoxia International Conference will be held again in La Paz, Bolivia in October 2014. Please stay in touch for updates and development. Also, there will be a course on High Altitude Medicine, Physiology and Pathology on Feb-April 2013. Prof. Dr. Gustavo Zubieta-Calleja (Jr) and Prof. Dr. Gustavo Zubieta-Castillo (Sr)
