The Summary of the 19th tRNA International Workshop

19th tRNA International Workshop was being held on April 6 to 11 in Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. The attendees come from US, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, Netherlands and China, etc. Total participants are more than 120 and over 100 senior scientists came from different countries all over the world, such as, Prof. Jin Youxin which from Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (IBCB), CAS, Prof. B. Clark which from Denmark Aarhus, president of IUBMB, the head of Sino-Euro Biotechnology Cooperation group, Academician of Denmark Academy Sciences. These two professors are co-chairmen of the workshop. The 19th tRNA workshop, a series meeting, is first time to be held in developing country.

 

On the ceremony, Prof. Jin Youxin delivered a lecture of "the tRNA study of China". He reviewed the Total synthesis of yeast alanine tRNA and tRNA research works in China. During the workshop, there were 62 scientists to make oral presentations, and rest of the people to perform the posters. The presentations covered a very wide area in the tRNA such as

 

1. tRNA genes, maturation, transcription, processing and transport;

2. tRNomics: bioinformatics and folding;

3. organelle tRNAs: non-universality, disease-related mutations;

4. tRNA binding proteins;

5. functions of modified nucleosides;

6. molecular evolution of aaRS and tRNA;

7. structure and function of aaRS;

8. decoding;

9. peptide bond formation;

10. new functions of tRNA and aaRS;

11. new technologies, drug design.

 

The Chinese scientists made four oral presentations. It is the highest oral report numbers in China during the series tRNA workshops. In the presentation of Professor D.Soll, Yale University, the member of American academy of Sciences, special mentioned his friendship with Chinese pioneer tRNA scientists Prof. Wang Yinglai and Prof. Wang Debao and his impression of the Chinese tRNA research works.

 

The two years late of the 18th tRNA workshop, in the research of ribosome and tRNA, it is proved that ribosome is ribozyme. Life may come from RNA. This remarked by the famous magazine of Science as the second scientific breakthrough of the ten in 2000 of the world. Prof. B. Clark mentioned the significance of RNomics research in the late genome study.

 

During the workshop, we organized a poster presentation. It last 2 hours and all participants took part in the lovely activity. It not only made an academic exchange but also a friendship communion. In the afternoon of the April 9th, all the participants visit the Shanghai Museum and oriental pearl TV tower. It made a deep impression to all the attendees the recent speed development of China. During the workshop, Prof.B.Clark, Prof. J. Weil of Plant Molecular Biology Institute, the participant of the workshop, the secretary general of IUBMB, French famous botanist, Prof. Genjun Xu of IBCB, member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the president of Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (CSBMB), Prof. and director Boliang Li of IBCB, vice president of CSBMB, and Prof. Qishui Lin of IBCB, president of FAOBMB, etc., exchanged the ideas on the society work and cooperation with each other.

 

The two satellite meetings of 19th tRNA International Workshop, EFBIC Workshop on Cell-free Protein Factories and European Focus on Biotechnology in China were being held on April 11-12 and April 12-13. More than 70 scientists from China, Europe, and Japan, etc took part in the first satellite meeting supported by European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB). The 7 foreign scientists including Japanese famous biochemist Dr. Yokoyama and Prof. Lou Guoan of Tsinhua University, associate professor Zeng Rong of IBCB, and Prof. Hu Genxi of IBCB delivered oral presentations. The second satellite meeting was supported by European Union to interface and cooperate with China. More than 30 people including 8 persons from the EFB and 8 persons from China National Center for Biotechnology Development took part in the meeting. On April 14, the EFB and CNCBD signed up a framework agreement for the cooperation between EFB and China in the biotechnology.

 

The 19th tRNA workshop organizing committee helped to arrange the two satellite meetings. Due to the workshop held in China, it enhanced the developing country´s scientists, special the Chinese scientists connecting with the top scientists in this area. It is a good opportunity for the further cooperation and promotion the deep comprehension from the colleagues in all over the world. In tRNA research area recently the scientists most focus to works on the origin of the tRNA and synthetase、relationship between tRNA and diseases、the effect of tRNA on synthesized the functional non-natural protein、new functions of tRNA and synthetase.