13 Nobel winners to gather in Beijing for life science conference

More than 400 top professors in life science from around the world, including 13 Nobel Prize winners, will gather in Beijing for the 2016 World Life Science Conference, which will start next Tuesday.

It is the first time that China will hold such a top level academic conference in the area of life science, the organizers announced on Tuesday. The theme of the conference is "Health, Agriculture and Environment".

Tu Youyou, the Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and Nobel Prize winner of 2015, and Marcia McNutt, the President of the American Academy of Sciences, are among the list of participants.

According to organizers, 66 sessions will be held throughout the three-day conference, covering topics such as neuroscience, genetic programming and nanobiotech. Each session will be co-chaired by a renowned Chinese scholar in the field and a foreign one.

Apart from the conference, an interactive session between Brian Kobilka - winner of 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry - and high school students will also be held during the conference. An exhibition will demonstrate the newest achievements in the field as well as science popularization presentations.

"China is now the leader or the co-leader in some specific areas in the life sciences, like stem cells and nanotech," said Liu Pingsheng, deputy secretary of the conference and a member of Chinese Association of Science and Technology, the head organizer of the event. "But in terms of general academic status worldwide and contributions of innovation, we are still trying to catch up."

"We expect the conference [will] help facilitate the world-class scientists to appear in China, for we've achieved a series of original accomplishments," said Wu Chen, an oncologist at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and a deputy secretary of the conference.