SIAIS hosted a successful 2017 ShanghaiTech-SIAIS BioForum at ShanghaiTech’s brand-new conference center from November 13th to 16th.
In the opening ceremony, ShanghaiTech Vice President and Provost Yin Jie and chairman of 2017 BioForum and BBRC editor Professor Ernesto Carafoli delivered opening addresses. Yin Jie welcomed the guests and introduced ShanghaiTech’s development, current situation and future plans. Professor Carafoli, speaking on behalf of the Forum Organizing Committee, expressed his heartfelt thanks to the school for its strong support.
This year’s BioForum continued the theme of last year’s forum, “Advances in Integrative Biology of Cellular Processes” and discussion focused on “Life and Death of Proteins.” 300 biomedicine researchers and industry representatives attended and more than twenty scientists from the world’s top universities and research institutions were invited to attend as distinguished speakers.
On the afternoon of Nov 14th, Professor Demin Zhou, Dean of Peking University’s School of Pharmaceutical Science, presented an extraordinary report titled “Biological drug innovation based on precise protein modification.” He explained the method can achieve protein site-specific modification and functional regulation, with the artificial amino acid bio-orthogonal reaction character in protein translation process. This technology has driven the rapid development of biotechnology drug research including gene therapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy. On the morning of Nov 16th, John Walker, a professor at Cambridge University and the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, gave the Amgen Lecture, The respiratory chain in mitochondria: a triumph for biochemistry and biophysics.” Professor Walker briefly reviewed his scientific career, introduced the audience to the composition of the respiratory chain of the mitochondria, and then presented his recent work on the function of each subunit of ATP synthase using the CRISPR / Cas9 system. The audience showed greatadmirationfor his achievements in scientific research and raised manyquestions. 23 exciting academic presentations were made and attendees exchanged views on more than 50 academic poster exhibitions.
As the biggest academic annual conference of SIAIS, ShanghaiTech-SIAIS BioForum has been held since 2014, on themes of “Cellular Processing of Information,” “Advances in Integrative Biology of Cellular Processes,”and “Advances and Perspectives in Integrative Biology of Cellular Processes.” The annual forum aims to provide biomedical scholars a high-level platform for academic communication, so as to further enhance innovation and cooperation between academia and industry.
