The 2019 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 21 and 22, 2019. The main theme of this event is “Drug Discovery and Technology Innovation”, which was concurrent with the 11th National Forum on New Technologies in Drug Discovery and the 8th 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, The Queenstown Molecular Biology Meeting Society of New Zealand, Shanghai Pudong Association for Science and Technology, Fudan University and National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Drs. Ming-Wei Wang (Director of the National Center for Drug Screening) and Peter Shepherd (Professor of The University of Auckland, New Zealand) co-chaired the 2-day event.

There were 8 plenary lectures and 9 parallel sessions, entitled Cancer Biology, Translational Science, Receptor Pharmacology, Discovery Research, Neglected Diseases, Young Investigators’ Forum, Biologics Innovation and Scientific Publishing, as well as the Annual Editorial Board Meeting of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica. About 400 domestic and overseas scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, managers and graduate students from 38 countries, regions or international organizations around the world attended the meetings. They conducted broad exchanges and interacted enthusiastically surrounding the topic of “Drug Discovery and Technology Innovation”. Among the 142 invited speakers, 62 were from overseas (43%), including more than a dozen of internationally renowned scholars such as 2013 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Dr. Michael Levitt. Twenty-one multinational or domestic instrument, informatics, reagent and consumable vendors as well as scientific journal publishers provided financial support to the event; 9 of them sent their representatives to give oral introductions to the audience covering various hot topics in drug innovation, ranging from new trends, new strategies, new technologies, to new methods, new tools and new equipment. The concert 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 29 years, which have attracted the attendance of numerous scientists, students and entrepreneurs. This is the seventh time to hold such a prestigious event outside of New Zealand, following a successful launching in Shanghai in 2013.