From December 3, 2022 to December 4, 2022 (Beijing time), the "Quantitative Biology Symposium 2022" was successfully held by Center for Quantitative Biology (CQB) at Peking University in Youcai Deng Lecture Hall, Jinguang Life Science Building, Peking University, as well as in online platforms. This symposium is one of the series of activities to celebrate the 20th anniversary of CQB. More than 20 wonderful talks were presented by many outstanding scientists in the interdisciplinary fields of life science and quantitative science.
At 8:30 a.m. on December 3rd, the symposium officially started. Professor Chao Tang, Director of CQB, delivered the opening speech. Chao reviewed the history that the Center for Quantitative Biology (formerly Center for Theoretical Biology) was founded in 2001 and has received substantial support over the past two decades, particularly from Peking University and Tsung-Dao Lee. Chao noted that this symposium commemorated the 20th anniversary of CQB. Many eminent scientists were invited to deliver academic lectures, and most of them have visited CQB before, leaving precious memories and photos. After the opening speech, participants viewed the CQB documentary together.
Professor Chao Tang delivered the opening speech
Twenty-three eminent scientists and young scholars from around the world spoke on multidisciplinary topics in biological science and quantitative science. The symposium includes both online and in-person talks. Online speakers utilized Zoom, while other speakers presented on sites. The symposium was livestreamed through the Koxiang online platform, with over 12 thousand viewers in total.
The talks covered the intersections of multiple research fields. In the field of biological phase separation, Prof. Ned Wingreen from Princeton University introduced their study on the ripening speed of biomolecular condensates. Combing dynamic simulation and experiment, their team uncovered several mechanisms leading to the slow ripening of biomolecular condensates. Dr. Zhi Qi from CQB shared the study on the phase separation mechanisms of DNA-protein co-condensation mediated by double-stranded DNA.
Prof. Ned Wingreen and Zhi Qi were giving talks
In the field of microorganism, Prof. Lingchong You from Duke University shared his research on horizontal gene transfer in microbial communities. Combining mathematical models with multi-plasmid transfer experiments, he demonstrated that horizontal gene transfer plays an important role in the transmission of bacterial phenotypes and influences the stability of microbial community gene abundance, providing a new design strategy for programming microbial communities. Prof. Roy Kishony from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology shared his work on antibiotic resistance, revealing the huge potential to integrate pathogenic microbial genome data, electronic patient record data, and treatment history to predict antibiotic resistance. Prof. Wallace Marshall from UCSF introduced his research on the control of eukaryotic flagella length. Combining experiments and model predictions, he validated and analyzed several existing flagella length sensing models, and pointed out possible research directions in this field. Dr. Zhiyuan Li from CQB shared the story from microbial genome data mining to the construction of siderophore-mediated interaction network. This research built a bridge from genomic sequence to iron interactions.
Prof. Lingchong You , Roy Kishony, Wallace Marshall, and Zhiyuan Li, were giving talks
In the field of aging, Prof. Hao Li from UCSF introduced his research on reverse the aging state of human cells through transcriptome reprogramming, revealing the possibility of reversing human cell aging through targeted regulation of transcription factors. Prof. Nan Hao from UCSD introduced his work of using yeast as a model organism to study aging, providing a success example of editable and programmable case for aging biology. Prof. Jing-Dong Jackie Han from CQB shared the research on aging related lncRNAs, revealing the important role of lncRNAs in linking old and young cells. It is worth noting that Prof. Uri Alon from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel delivered two lectures at the symposium, introducing his research on the systemic physiology of cellular fibrosis and aging, respectively. In the first lecture, Prof. Uri Alon showed a circuit framework of myofibroblasts and macrophages in healing, with a multi-stable system consisting of "hot fibrosis", "cold fibrosis" and normal healing states. In the second talk, Prof. Uri Alon shared a theoretical framework to study aging, which can connect patterns such as survival curves and mortality rates to the molecular features of aging.
Prof. Hao Li, prof. Nan Hao, prof. Jing-Dong Jackie Han, and Prof. Uri Alon were giving talks
In the field of synthetic biology, Prof. Michael Elowitz from Caltech introduced his research progress in the synthetic design of multicellular systems. He highlighted three synthetic biology systems that enabled multicellular cell fate control, protein-level classification, and the generation of complex patterns, respectively. Prof. Elowitz said that the development of synthetic multicellular biology will help design new tissues and new cell therapies, as well as reveal new principles for multicellular circuit design.
Prof. Michael Elowitz was giving the talk
There were multiple talks on understanding living systems by computational and theoretical approaches: Prof. Yuhai Tu from IBM shared his theoretical research on non-equilibrium physics of living systems. Prof. Leihan Tang from Hong Kong Baptist University shared his work on the behavior of cell populations using an extended mean-field model. Dr. Chen Song from CQB shared his work using molecular dynamic simulations to study the interaction between calcium ions and proteins in living systems.
Prof. Yuhai Tu, Leihan Tang, and Chen Song were giving talks
There were also exciting talks on the quantitative approaches of cell biology. Prof. Jianhua Xing from the University of Pittsburgh introduced his work on reconstructing the transition dynamics between cell types based on single cell data, which provided an important method for constructing cell differentiation trajectories using single cell data. Prof. Michael Zhang from the University of Texas at Dallas shared a single-cell spatial metabolomics technique and demonstrated its significant potential in studying the tissue microenvironment. Prof. Terry Hwa from UCSD shared a series of important findings on cell growth laws from the perspective of "coarse-graining". Prof. Mogens Jensen from the University of Copenhagen shared his research on the widespread oscillation and chaos in cells. He suggested that oscillation was conducive to DNA damage and repair, and chaos signals helped the transcription and translation system work more efficiently. Prof. Kim Sneppen, also from the University of Copenhagen, used a particle model, which is a simpler than the traditional vertex model, to study the basic rules of Apical basal polarity (AB) during the development of the zygote to the blastocyst, the stable complex structure generated by AB polarization, and how Planar cell polarity (PCP) controls the length and width of the tube. He further explored different rules of the tube formation of gastrula, neural tube and blood vessel. Prof. David Weitz from Harvard University shared his research on protein fitness landscape and developed an efficient screening system using microfluidic droplets. Prof. William Bialek from Princeton University shared his research from neurons to behaviors, and the interpretation of scaling laws by the method of coarse-graining and normalization group. Dr. Yihan Lin from CQB shared his research on biomolecular engineering and synthetic evolvability in mammalian cells. Prof. Naama Barkai from Weizmann Institute of Science shared her research on detecting binding sites of transcription factors, revealing intrinsically disordered regions mediated binding specificity.
Prof. Jianhua Xing, Michael Zhang, Terry Hwa, William Bialek, Mogens Jensen, Kim Sneppen, David Weitz, Yihan Lin, and Naama Barkai were giving talks
After two days of academic activities, the Quantitative Biology Symposium 2022 was successfully concluded. In his closing speech, Prof. Qi Ouyang expressed his gratitude to the speakers and many scholars for their support of CQB over the past 20 years. Prof. Ouyang then remarked that quantitative biology is vigorously developing, and the duty of advancing CQB in the next 20 years will fall on young scholars and students. Finally, Prof. Ouyang thanked the conference staff and volunteers.
Prof. Qi Ouyang delivered the closing remarks
Group photo
Video playback address：https://www.koushare.com/lives/room/309212
