From December 12 to 17, the 2023 annual meeting of Association of Synthetic Biology of Asia (ASBA) was held in Hyogo County of Japan. The annual meeting of ASBA was held in turn in the four countries of China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore each year, adopting a small-scale, high-quality and invitation-based conference model. Every year, synthetic biology scholars from Asian countries who had an excellent performance last year were invited to deliver an academic report. This year, 26 Chinese scholars were invited from higher education and research institutes such as Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shandong University, East China Normal University, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, and Shenzhen Bay Laboratory. Liu Chenli, co-chairman of ASBA and Vice President of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, led a delegation to attend the conference.

On December 18, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology held a seminar at the University of Tokyo, which introduced the research environment, laboratory equipment and various research projects in detail, attracting outstanding graduate students and research talents to join Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology. Later, the delegation visited the Norikazu ICHIHASHI Laboratory of the University of Tokyo and the laboratory of Daisuke KIGA of Waseda University (sponsor of the Japanese Society for Synthetic Cell Research). The two sides had in-depth exchanges on cooperation in such aspects as design and application of artificial cells.

On December 19, the delegation was invited to the headquarters of the Japan New Energy Industry Technology Development Agency (NEDO) to exchange views with representatives of the institution and Japan Science and Technology Promotion Agency (JST) to discuss future plans and cooperation in the field of bio-manufacturing.