Some of us attended the 12^th National Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology of China at Tsingtao, 27-30 Oct 2023.

Congrats to Lingfeng! He has passed his qualifying exam, and will continue to pursue his PhD in the group.

Chen was invited to visit the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences at Göttingen, which was called the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry previously. The academic meeting was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Department of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics. It was a wonderful event that stimulated lots of old memories and new ideas.

The TRPV paper is online in the Journal of General Physiology! Congrats to Chunhong and Lingfeng! They used our multisite calcium model to simulate the ion permeation and binding patterns in TRPV1 and TRPV6, uncovering distinct features for these two channels. Chunghong had to work on weekends to finish this project, as she left the group a year ago and worked in a company. Lingfeng made a substantial contribution to conducting all the PMF calculations for the revision. Great teamwork! Special thanks go to Dr. Ives and Prof. Zachariae at the University of Dundee for their insightful discussions and invaluable advice. 

Chen and Song were invited to visit Dr. Yuji Sugita's Theoretical Molecular Science Laboratory at RIKEN (Wako, Japan) on 13-16 Sep, 2023. During the visit, Chen shared our team's recent advancements in predicting alternative protein conformations, while Song presented his research on Switching Go-Martini simulations. Interestinly, Professor Ben Corry from the Australian National University happened to be in Tokyo at the same time and also participated in the seminars!

After dedicating eight years to studying and contributing to our group, Dali has embarked on a new professional adventure. Dali has accepted a position as a faculty member at Binzhou Medical University, Yantai Campus.

Dali's journey with our group began in 2015 when he joined as our first graduate student. Over the years, he excelled, earning his Ph.D. in 2020 and subsequently dedicating three years to postdoctoral research within our team. Dali consistently proved himself to be an invaluable asset, not only a diligent member but also a dependable and helpful friend to all.

As Dali moves forward in his career, we extend our warmest wishes for his success and happiness in all his future endeavors!

Jiaxuan and Chang attended the EBSA Congress in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 31-August 4, 2023. Jiaxuan presented her work on the prediction of the alternative conformations of proteins, and Chang presented her work on asymmetrical Ca²⁺-membrane interactions.

Welcome Zhongjie to join the group! Zhongjie has recently obtained his PhD from Beijing University of Technology, China. He is highly enthusiastic about studying protein allostery using multi-scale computational methods. Notably, he has been awarded the prestigious CLS fellowship and will be commencing his postdoctoral work with us from August onward.

The entire group enthusiastically participated in the first national meeting on biomolecular structure prediction and simulation, held in Hangzhou from June 16th to 18th. The event proved to be a remarkable gathering, showcasing cutting-edge advancements within the field. Moreover, it provided a delightful opportunity to reconnect with friends, colleagues, and former members of our group. 

Congratulations to Zefeng on successfully passing his qualifying exam! Zefeng has demonstrated remarkable independence in his research and achieved an excellent grade in the examination. He is now set to advance to the next stage of pursuing his Ph.D. within the group.