Introduction
Lactic Acid Bcteria (LAB) are widespread in nature, being usually found in decomposing plants and lactic products, and have been used worldwide to ferment or culture foods as well as in human and veterinary medicine for thousands of years. In every nation, there are traditional methods of using LAB for different purposes such as fermenting dairy products, pickling vegetables, baking, winemaking and curing fish, meat and sausages. This is particulary obvious in Asian countries, where a huge variety of fermented products, of both animal and herbal origin, from t
raditional processing methods is available, including specialities like kimchi (Korea), tape (Indonesia and Malaysia) and puto (Philippines). Mongolia is another Asian country with a longtime tradition of fermenting milk products including yoghurt, cheese, butter, buttermilk, kefir and koumiss to name but a few.
Along with the technological advances in the recent years, the capacities and methods of both research and industrial application of LAB have been greatly improved. Bio products in general and probiotic foods in particular are increasingly demanded worldwide in response to the demands of an increasingly health-conscious public. Thus, there are considerable business opportunities for exploiting LAB.
Given the growing importance of LAB, Asian microbiologists founded the Asian Federation of Societies for Lactic Acid Bacteria (www.afslab.org) as a forum for interflowing and discussion for experts from LAB-related industrial and acamedic circle in 2000. The major academic activity of the AFSLAB has been to organize biennial conferences since 2001. The previous four conferences offered great opportunities for exchange between Asian LAB-researchers and significantly contributed to an improvement of their collaboration.
This time, we decided to organize a symposium between the fifth and the sixth AFSLAB conferences in Mongolia. We do hope that the symposium will make its contribution to the further development of the AFSLAB-network.
Aim
The main purpose of the symposium is to enable Asian researchers to exchange and disseminate information related to research and industrial utilization of LAB. Strategic goals of the symposium include strengthening the 8-year old network of the AFSLAB and bringing research and industry in the field of LAB-research closer. We will be happy if the participants connect with each other, share information and ideas, catch up with existing developments and take home fresh ideas to implement in their professional and academic context.
Place and Date 
The 2008 Asian symposium on Lactic Acid Bacteria in Research and Industry will take place on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th August 2008 at the hotel Chinggis Khan in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Language
The symposium will be conducted in English.
Publications
Full papers of keynote lectures and abstracts of accepted papers and posters will be published in the proceedings of the symposium under an ISBN reference.
