The first reaction we have had from the international readers, even from the Korean readers is unanimous when we have proudly shown them the Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives (PHRP) with its glossy cover: “What is Osong?” Our answers has consisted in a patch of geography, nomenclature, national plan, and wound up to Korea Express Train (KTX), to name a few.
It needs tons of explanation even to Koreans. For Osong is the name of a newly planned town located in the heartland of Korea with area of 4,633,000 square meters. The Korean government planned to push an ambitious project to concentrate national biomedical industry to a new bio-technopolis. First of all, the Korea central government relocated six bio-health related national agencies including Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH), Korea Food and Drug Administration, National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation, Korea Health Industry Development Institute,and Korea Human Resource Development Institute for Health and Welfare. The project is under progress. You can still see the many blocks are being occupied with trucks and heavy construction equipment. The Osong bio-technopolis project is to hold academia, pharmaceutical factories and research facilities.
Osong originates from the name of a railway station in the town, literally means “five pine trees.” The name of this journal has come from the resourceful idea of Dr. Jong-Koo Lee, former director of KCDC, wishing it to be a proper name in the history of biomedical research in the world, which everybody were then suspicious of its sustainability.
Now Dr. Lee’s vision is about to be full-fledged. One of the biggest symposia held in the biomedical field of Korea 2011 names after this new cute town. Osong Symposium on Infectious Diseases 2011 (OSID 2011) which is held by the Korea National Institute of Health in association with Trans-governmental Enterprise for Pandemic Influenza in Korea. KNIH request a PHRP’s supplement issue for this event. We feel honored to have that request and here we present the very first supplement issue, which is one year ahead of our original plan. OSID would be a regular source of PHRP supplement issue each year.
Figure & Data
Citations
Citations to this article as recorded by