The 2018 Queenstown Molecular Biology (Shanghai) Meetings, jointly organized by the National Center for Drug Screening and Shanghai Pudong Engineers Association were successfully held at China Financial Information Center located in Lujiazui, Pudong between March 22 and 23, 2018. The main theme of this event is “Drug Discovery and Social Impact”, which was concurrent with the 10th National Forum on New Technologies in Drug Discovery and the 7th Meeting of Chinese Network for Drug and Diagnostics Innovation.

Among the sponsors were Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China Financial Information Center (affiliated to Xinhua News Agency), Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (CAS), Fudan University, The Queenstown Molecular Biology Meeting Society of New Zealand, Shanghai Association for Science and Technology, Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, Shanghai Pudong Association for Science and Technology, Zhangjiang High-Tech Park and Shanghai Research and Development Public Service Platform, etc. Fudan School of Pharmacy and National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention assisted in the event preparation. Dr. Ming-Wei Wang (Director of the National Center for Drug Screening/Chinese National Compound Library and Dean of Fudan School of Pharmacy) organized the 2-day event.

There were 6 plenary lectures and 9 parallel sessions, entitled Cancer Biology, Innovative Research, Metabolic Disorders, Protein Science, Social Impact, New Technologies, ADC Advances, Neglected Diseases and Young Investigators’ Forum, as well as the Annual Editorial Board Meeting of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica. More than 300 domestic and overseas scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, managers, graduate and undergraduate students from 28 countries and regions around the world attended the meetings. They conducted broad exchanges and interacted enthusiastically surrounding the topic of “Drug Discovery and Social Impact”. Among the 112 invited speakers, 52 were from overseas (46.42%), including more than a dozen of internationally renowned scholars and 11 young investigators from Australia, China, Korea, New Zealand and The Philippines. Seventeen multinational or domestic instrument, informatics, reagent and consumable vendors provided financial support to the event; 7 of them sent their representatives to give oral introductions to the audience covering various hot topics in global drug innovation, ranging from new trends, new strategies, new technologies, to new methods, new tools and new equipment. The concert, with the theme of “For those everlasting voices ‒ searching for memories in the music of classic films and television”, elegantly performed by 6 well-established young musicians, elicited tremendous enthusiasm from the audience.

Queenstown Molecular Biology Meetings are a well-known international academic forum with a history of more than 27 years, which have attracted the attendance of numerous scientists, students and entrepreneurs. This is the sixth time to hold such a prestigious event outside of New Zealand, following a successful launching in Shanghai in 2013.