The 18th Q-Bio International Conference on Quantitative Biology (hereinafter referred to as the "Q-Bio Conference") was held at the Guangming Cloud Valley International Convention Center in Shenzhen from July 26th to 29th. More than 230 research scholars from around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, gathered at this grand event to explore the development prospects and potential opportunities in the fields of quantitative biology and synthetic biology, focusing on the theme of "Quantitative Laws and Predictable Models of Complex Life Systems".

  After the successful holding of the 17th conference, the Q-Bio conference was once again held in Shenzhen this year. The local organizing committee is led by Liu Chenli, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology and President of the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology Innovation.

  In his speech, Chenli Liu expressed gratitude to the Q-Bio International Organizing Committee for choosing Shenzhen again this year - a city known as the "Silicon Valley of China" and renowned for technological innovation. The conference venue, Guangming Science City, is rapidly developing into a national center for scientific research and technological innovation. Shenzhen Advanced Institute includes 9 research institutes, focusing on the cross integration of information technology (IT) and biotechnology (BT). Among them, quantitative synthetic biology is flourishing, and the academic community is rapidly expanding, building a highly scaled scientific and industrial highland. This year, relying on the scientific research resources and industry education resources of Shenzhen Advanced Institute, Shenzhen University of Technology, as a new type of research-oriented university, was officially established in Guangming District. I hope everyone can enjoy and deeply participate in the transformative journey of Q-Bio 2024, and explore the new realm of quantitative biology together.

  On site presentation guests shared cutting-edge topics such as synthetic biology, systems biology, artificial intelligence, aging, tumors, molecular evolution, and microbiome, covering the latest scientific research achievements, as well as future development directions and potential application prospects in their respective fields. This conference is chaired by Dai Lei, a researcher at Shenzhen Advanced Institute. The on-site response was enthusiastic, and interdisciplinary questioning and communication added a strong academic atmosphere to the entire conference.

  Lei Dai introduced that the Q-Bio conference provides a platform for global quantitative biology experts and young scholars to explore cutting-edge advances in the discipline and promote interdisciplinary international cooperation. We look forward to the participants working together to promote the sharing of knowledge and resources, promote technological innovation, and jointly face and solve global scientific research problems and challenges.

  Special guest at the conference, Professor James E. Ferrell from Stanford University in the United States, highly praised the richness of the speech topics presented at the conference. He proposed that how researchers can predict the behavior in gene circuits is still an unresolved issue. The conference provides valuable knowledge and inspiration for scholars who prefer quantitative methods, and looks forward to the future direction of quantitative biology.

  "Shenzhen has shown great vitality in the field of quantitative biology!" Tang Chao, an academician of the CAS Member and a chair professor of West Lake University, believes that Shenzhen is gradually developing into a central city for international exchanges in cutting-edge scientific and technological fields such as quantitative biology and synthetic biology. He hopes that more young scholars can participate in interdisciplinary cooperation, maintain active thinking, and pursue what they think is meaningful and eager to do in a free and open academic atmosphere.

  Assistant Professor Scott M. Coyle from the University of Wisconsin Madison stated that quantitative methods have transformed biology from an observational science to a truly predictive tool that helps people understand living systems. Through this opportunity, I have seen the significant technological infrastructure for synthetic biology research currently under construction in Shenzhen, as well as a series of cutting-edge projects underway. This sense of 'the future is here' has inspired me greatly.

  Ping Wei, a member of the organizing committee of this conference and a researcher at Shenzhen Advanced Institute, stated that quantitative biology, as a cutting-edge interdisciplinary field for studying complex biological systems, urgently needs extensive and efficient international cooperation to gather global wisdom and jointly promote the solution of major scientific problems in quantitative biology. The development of quantitative biology will promote breakthroughs in multidimensional precise measurement, computation, and mathematical tools in complex life systems, essential theories of life processes, high-throughput standardized data, and help to understand the design principles of complex functions in life systems from a theoretical perspective, promoting the development from recognizing life to designing life.

  It is reported that the Q-Bio conference was jointly initiated by research teams from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico in 2007. It has been successfully held for 18 sessions worldwide and has a high reputation and wide influence in fields such as biophysics and systems biology. It is reported that this conference will collaborate with the Journal of Quantitative Biology to establish a special issue, and all accepted manuscripts will have the opportunity to be published through open access mode.

  The successful conclusion of this Q-Bio conference highlights Shenzhen's layout and vision in global scientific research cooperation, especially in the field of quantitative synthetic biology. As a cutting-edge interdisciplinary field, quantitative biology provides powerful tools for revealing the design principles and operational rules of biological systems through its advanced measurement methods and theoretical modeling. This conference showcased Shenzhen's image as an open window and technology frontier city, conducted in-depth discussions on major issues related to national strategic needs and scientific frontiers, promoted source innovation and cutting-edge intersection, and injected new impetus into Shenzhen's strategic goal of building a synthetic biology highland.

  The conference was jointly sponsored by Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen University of Technology, Peking University, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology Innovation, Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Association and other parties.