Asian Synthetic Biology Association Headquarters Shenzhen Boost Basic Research and Bio-industry Development

On October 27-30, 2019, the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Asian Synthetic Biology Association (ASBA) is held in Chengdu. ASBA Headquarters Ceremony and ASBA Research Center Inauguration Ceremony is held to confirm that ASBA is headquartered in Shenzhen and the headquarters secretariat is located at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIAT). This is of great significance to the development of the Asian Synthetic Biology, the construction of scientific research teams and the international development trend of the discipline.Deping Wang, Director of Frontier Biotechnology Department of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, Professor Guoping Zhao, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Synthetic Biology Committee of the Chinese Society of Bioengineering, Academician of the Chinese Academy and Chairman of the Chinese Society for Microbiology Zixin Deng, and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chairman of China Medicinal Biotechnology Association Yuquan Wei attended the meeting.

 17.png

As the head of the ASBA headquarters, Liu Chenli, director of the Institute of Synthetic Biology of SIAT and director of the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, said: “The establishment of ASBA will gather influential experts and scholars in the field of synthetic biology in Asia, and enhance the influence and status of China and Asian countries in the field of synthetic biology. It is an important move of SIAT for the world's technological frontiers. At the same time, it will also help the construction of Shenzhen's socialist demonstration zone.”

It is understood that the Asian Synthetic Biology Association was initiated and established in 2018 by 60 academic institutions from China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The first organization committee of the association includes SIAT, Kobe University, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, and the National University of Singapore. ASBA is committed to promoting academic democracy, conducting international academic exchanges, promoting academic ethics, adhering to academic openness and fairness, improving the level of personnel training and scientific research, and promoting the development of synthetic biology research in Asia to a world-class level.

 

Internationally, synthetic biology has become one of the new edges of a new round of worldwide competitions. It is believed to bring about the third life scientific revolution after the molecular biology revolution and the genomics revolution, and promote the great leap form “Understand Life to “Engineering Life”. Many countries have identified synthetic biology as a strategic, disruptive technology field. Because Synthetic biology is not only important for human understanding of the nature of life, but also shows great potential and application prospects in medicine, energy, materials, agriculture, and environment. Many countries in the world have carried out comprehensive strategic planning and layout in the field of synthetic biology, focusing on forward-looking basic research, key core technologies, application transformation, large-scale infrastructure support, and even specialized research institutions for disruptive technologies.

As an academic research and communication platform, ASBA is a powerful bridge that mediates academic communication in Asian countries. Through its academic independence and flexibility, ASBA can coordinate academic exchanges and academic activities in Asian countries, strengthen the diffusion of synthetic biology technology, form a more complete synthetic biology innovation ecosystem, and thus promote the development of synthetic biology research in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, India and Indonesia. Ultimately, it can enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of Asian synthetic biology in the international arena, and keep up with the development trend of international synthetic biology.

 According to Chenli Liu, Australia, Thailand, India, Indonesia and other countries have applied to join ASBA. It is believed that through the development of the next few years, ASBA will become one of the important nodes of the international synthetic biology innovation network, which will not only promote the rapid development of basic research and bio-industry in Asian synthetic biology, but also determine the future synthetic biology industry in Asia. ASBA will play a key-supporting role in a series of downstream industries such as medical, agricultural, chemical, and materials, thus providing new solutions to major problems such as resources, energy and environment faced by mankind.