The international conference on “Quantitative Biology 2021: Aging and Rejuvenation” was convened at Zhongguan New Garden hotel in Beijing, China, from 15-16 July 2021. This conference was organized by Prof. Jing-Dong Jackie Han (Chair), Prof. Chao Tang from Center for Quantitative Biology (CQB) at Peking University, and Prof. Hao Li from University of California San Francisco and was co-sponsored by Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Graduate School of Peaking University, Beijing Bioinformatics Research Society, and Cytiva company (also known as Global Life Sciences Solutions USA, formerly GE Healthcare Life Sciences).
Group photo of onsite meeting
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Prof. Chao Tang said that “Quantitative Biology” conference series have been annually organized by CQB at Peking University since 2000, except 2003 due to SARS pandemic and 2008 because of Olympic Games, and each year focused on a carefully chosen topic of quantitative biology, the topic of this year is aging and rejuvenation.
Prof. Jing-Dong Jackie Han chaired the onsite meeting
Prof. Hao Li chaired the online meeting
Prof. Chao Tang delivered opening speech
The conference brought together 26 outstanding scientists and young researchers working in the field of aging and rejuvenation from China, the United States, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea, and Canada. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, invited talks were presented online for foreign participants and onsite for domestic participants. Around 300 people, including online and onsite, attended this conference. In addition to invited long talks and contributed oral talks, the onsite attendees also participated the poster session, during which students discussed and exchanged experiences on the projects they were doing or presenting.
Onsite presentations
Online presentations
Under the title “aging and rejuvenation”, the conference covered several related areas, including but not limited to aging clocks, aging prediction by 3D facial images, oral microbiota, adult stem cell differentiation, Alzheimer’s disease and healthy longevity, single-cell based aging studies, mitochondria, metabolism, RNA structure systems biology, COVID-19, 3D genome biology, aging trajectories, and aging interventions, around which the invited speakers shared their creative research ideas, new research results and technologies. The talks are insightful and inspiring, revealed rapid development and challenges still remain in this field. The conference also offered a valuable opportunity for young researchers and students to learn about cutting-edge scholarship and make contacts through networking.
Group photo of award ceremony
The two-day meeting is exciting and fruitful, and shows that the aging study is fascinating, as Prof. Chao Tang said at the closing session. On behalf of the Organizing Committee, Prof. Chao Tang and Prof. Jing-Dong Jackie Han expressed appreciation to all invited speakers, participants, staff and volunteers. In the end, two “Best Poster Awards” winners and one “Excellent Poster Awards” winner were selected by a group of professors, and awardees received their awards at the award ceremony.
