The 2010 annual meeting of the National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules (NLB) was held successfully on Feburary 4, 2010 at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The meeting, presided by Professor Tao Xu, director of both IBP and NLB, was attended by 11 members of NLB academic committee and about 200 researchers, graduate students, and administrative staff of the institute and officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and CAS.
During his opening address, Professor Tao Xu briefed the prominent achievements that NLB had made in the recent years. Mr. Jie Liu, Director of the General Office, Bureau of Life Science and Biotechnology, CAS, pointed out the leading role of the laboratory in the basic research in China, reassured CAS’ consistent support in the future, and expressed his sincere hope that the laboratory will make even greater contributions to the research and development of the field of Biomacromolecules.
The morning session was featured by 9 invited presentations covering latest progress in different areas of research of NLB. The first presentation, given by academician Senfang Sui from Tsinghua University was titled “Molecular mechanism of DegP (HtrA) in protein quality control”. Then eight IBP principal investigators reported their work respectively. These talks aroused great interests among the audience and led to lively discussions.
In the afternoon, the meeting of NLB academic committee was held in meeting room 8408 of the Protein Science Center of IBP, presided by academician Chih-chen Wang. Professor Tao Xu first introduced the laboratory’s recent development in different aspects, including research projects, achievements, recruiting of talents, funding resources, and so on. Then the committee discussed about how to improve the laboratory’s research making the best use of its distinctives and advantages while overcome various obstacles. The committee pointed out that in the future, the laboratory had to integrate functional research with structural biology studies to solve big scientific questions. Meanwhile, more effort should be made in the innovation and development of novel research methods, instruments, and tools. Held in the last year of the 11th five-year plan, the annual meeting not only served as the preparation meeting for the laboratory’s evaluation next year, but also supplied an excellent platform for sharing of new developments and ideas and promoting interdisciplinary exchanges and cooperations. All the members of the laboratory are working hard and expecting even more achievements in the next five years.
