The 3rd Asia Pacific Protein Association (APPA) Conference and Joint Sino-UK Protein Symposium were held in Shanghai University

The 3rd Asia Pacific Protein Association (APPA) Conference was held in Shanghai University, Shanghai, China on 6-9 May, 2011. This meeting was unique by being co-organized by APPA and The Protein Society. Forty- eight outstanding scientists were invited to speak at this meeting; they not only come from the Asia pacific area, but also from North America and Europe. Meanwhile, to provide a forum for the young scholars, a special student/postdoc session was organized, with the 20 speakers to be selected from those who submit abstracts. About 600 delegates from more than 30 countries attended this meeting. This meeting provided an international forum to promote communication, cooperation and collaboration in all aspects of protein science.

The theme of the 3rd APPA Conference was “Protein and Beyond”, and the topics were as follows:

1. Protein biosynthesis, trafficking and quality control
2. Protein folding, structure and dynamics
3. Protein post-translational modification and activity modulation
4. Protein interaction, network and proteomics
5. Protein machinery and action mechanism
6. Protein design and engineering
7. Protein real time and quantitative detection, and single molecule study
8. Proteins in disease and drug discovery
9. Protein applications in biotechnology and therapeutics
10. Interdisciplinary study of proteins.
 
This conference was held on the campus of Shanghai University. This not only reduced the conference expenses, but also allowed more students to benefit from such an event.
 
As a tradition of the Chinese Protein Society symposium, a concert of classic foreign and Chinese music performed by the Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble was organized. Science and arts share many similar features and all the attendees enjoyed this special program.
 
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Biochemical Society (of UK), a satellite Joint Sino-UK Protein Symposium was held a day ahead of and overlap with the first day of the 3rd APPA Conference, co-sponsored by the Biochemical Society and the Chinese Protein Society. The Symposium focused on structural biology, drug discovery and the history of successful UK-Sino research collaborations. About 200 delegates from UK and China attended this symposium.