Privy Councilor Makes Opening Remarks on the Occasion of "The Stang Monkolsuk Building Opening Ceremony"
and "Bridges-Dialogues towards a Culture of Peace"

On April 5, 2010, His Excellency Kasem Watanachai (M.D.), the Privy Councilor, made opening remarks on the occasion of "The Stang Monkolsuk Building Opening Ceremony" and "Bridges-Dialogues towards a Culture of Peace", a Nobel Laureate lecture by Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, which was co-organized by the International Peace Foundation and Faculty of Science, Mahidol University.

Prof. Barré-Sinoussi, the Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008, together with Prof. Luc Montagnier, for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).  This discovery made rapid cloning of the HIV-1 genome possible and most importantly, it led to the development of methods to diagnose infected patients and to screen blood products, which has limited the spread of the AIDS pandemic.

Prof. Barré-Sinoussi delivered a special lecture on the topic: "Future challenges in HIV/AIDS prevention and therapy". During the talk, she stated that the combination of prevention and treatment has substantially decreased the spread of the HIV disease and dramatically increased the life expectancy among millions of treated patients worldwide. "As we are all well aware, today's world is unfortunately filled with so many conflicts. Many parts of the globe have battles between ethnic groups, faiths, and other differences, while fights against hungers, disease, and deterioration of the global environment are still far from over," she said.