By Li Han

Staff Writer of the Tsinghua News Center

As its fifth annual meeting, the Chinese Biological Investigators Society (CBIS) convened The Symposium on Frontiers in Biological Sciences at Tsinghua University’s Main Building from July 22 to July 24. More than 600 biological science researchers participated in the symposium, including 160 of Chinese ancestry from North America.

The meeting covered a broad range of topics, including mechanisms of human disease, regulation of gene expression, frontiers of structural biology, cell cycle regulation and cancer, human diseases and therapeutics, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, novel approaches to cancer biology, and infection and immunity.

Minister of Education Zhou Ji, Minister of Health Chen Zhu, Former Minister of Science and Technology Xu Guanhua, Tsinghua Vice President Hu Heping, Princeton University Professor Dr. Shi Yigong, the President of CBIS and a Tsinghua Changjiang Professor, and Ms. Emilie Marcus, Editor of Cell and Executive Editor of Cell Press, and Dr. Leroy Hood, President of Institute for Systems Biology, attended the symposium and delivered speeches.

CBIS, previously known as the Ray Wu Society, is a not-for-profit professional life sciences organization. The Society primarily comprises life scientists of Chinese origin and requires membership qualification at or above a certain level of career development. The mission of the CBIS is to advance the frontiers in life sciences by providing Chinese researchers and their peers of other nationalities with a platform for professional interaction and collaboration. CBIS is also committed to facilitating the development of life sciences research in China.