Special issue of 13th Chinese International Peptide Symposium

Abstract

Chinese peptide research has a legendary history, marked by the successful total synthesis of crystalline insulin as early as in the 1960s. The Chinese International Peptide Symposium was started in 1990 to promote the development of peptide chemistry and biology in China and the communication between Chinese and international scientists in related fields. As a bi-annual meeting, the Symposium has witnessed the rapid advances of Chinese peptide research that was well supported by the great economic growth of China. The 13th Chinese International Peptide Symposium with the theme of ‘Peptides: Treasure of Chemistry and Biology’ took place from June 30 to July 4, 2014 in Datong City, Shanxi Province, China. There were about 300 scientists attending the Symposium, including about 50 international delegates from the USA, Australia, Japan, UK, France, Singapore, Greek, Korea, Canada, and Switzerland. The Symposium was also attended and supported by over 30 domestic and international companies. The Symposium presented the most recent developments of peptide research in the following fields: synthesis of natural and unnatural amino acids and analogues; methodology of peptide/protein synthesis; amino acids and peptides-based asymmetric catalysis; peptide drugs, mimetics, and conjugates; antimicrobial peptides, peptide vaccines, glycopeptides, and neuropeptides; peptide/protein material sciences; structural and conformational studies of peptides/proteins; technological advances in peptide purification and analysis; peptide ligands, receptors, and signaling; role of peptides in genomics, proteomics, and peptidomics. This issue of Journal of Peptide Science collects a representative number of articles presented at the Symposium. We wish to share with the readers some of the current research trends and technology level of peptide research in China. We would like to thank all authors for their excellent contributions. We would also like to thank Luis Moroder for helping us in handling the manuscripts.