The 1st SMART Symposium was held on February 12-13, 2023 at the International Conference Center of University Town of Shenzhen. Notable invitees included Dr. Muming Poo, Academic Director of the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology as well as Dr. Yang Dan, Professor of Neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley and Researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Various experts and scholars from renowned universities, research institutes, and medical and health institutions in China gathered in Shenzhen to update their research progress and development in their fields. They exchanged opinions on technological trends and how to encourage original innovation. The seminar, mainly two parts, was held in hybrid forms (online and in-person) and included academic presentations and discussions around innovative research. There are more than 200 attendees on site with nearly 2,000 participants joining in the conference online.
The Symposium started with a speech by Professor Nieng Yan, President of SMART. In her speech, Professor Yan briefly introduced the background and construction of SMART. She pointed out that SMART aims to encourage the exploration of innovative mechanisms, to gather and cultivate high-level talents, and to enhance the capabilities of original innovation. It is committed to building an innovative highland that integrates technology, education, and talents. Professor Yan also stated that SMART Symposium would be regularly held for more academic exchanges, striving to become a shining academic business card in the Greater Bay Area. Finally, Professor Yan sent an invitation to the world in hopes that more talents would join SMART with the slogan, "Be a SMARTer".
Thirteen scholars delivered engaging academic presentations on a variety of topics, such as neural biology, biotechnology development, synthetic biology, spatiotemporal genomics, and immune mechanisms of COVID-19 infection. Professor Yang Dan from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute presented the talk, "The How and Why of sleep?" This talked introduced the latest research findings from her research group. Professor Tianming Gao from Southern Medical University showcased the cellular and neural circuit mechanisms of ATP-regulated depressive behavior. Professor Mingjie Zhang from the Southern University of Science and Technology reported on the latest research progress of his team on the mechanisms of phase separation in synapse formation and function. Researcher Xuetong Shen from Shenzhen Bay Laboratory shared conceptual ideas from his research group on nuclear myosin biology and myosin cryptology. The rich and diverse content of the presentations included systematic summaries of previous research achievements and prospects for the discipline's future, which sparked lively discussions among the audience.
Innovation is the root and soul of Shenzhen. Similarly, innovation is also the eternal driving force of scientific development. As a new research and development institution that aims to create a high-quality development paradigm of deep integration of science and industry, SMART takes exploring and encouraging original innovation as its mission. Therefore, a discussion on innovative research was arranged as a theme at this symposium. Six experts, namely Professor Muming Poo, Tingting Chu, Zhuojun Dai, Yang Dan, Hongwei Guo and Nieng Yan, participated in the discussion.
Innovation has been a global focus in recent years, especially with the acceleration of the unprecedented changes. Strengthening original innovation, solving "bottleneck" problems, and achieving overtaking on curves or changing lanes have become a top priority for China's scientific community. So what is innovation? What is the essence of innovation? Dr. Muming Poo answered these questions for everyone in the opening report. In Dr. Poo's views, the essence of innovation should have six characteristics: novelty, importance, continuity, completeness, uniqueness, and timeliness. Dr. Poo also talked about the choice of work risks that scholars often face in specific innovative work. Dr. Poo's Innovation Research report, which condensed his life wisdom, let the audience exclaim fulfilling to listen. In the subsequent discussion session, the audience on-site was enthusiastic and the questioners were uninterrupted. "The difference between domestic and foreign research environments." "How can researchers engaged in small-scale and small-directional research persist?" "Without supervision, how does one find his own research field?" "How to relief stress and anxiety issues?" ... Audience raised many problems and confusion they encountered in scientific research. Six guests shared their suggestions and stories. The discussion ended 20 minutes late due to heated discussion and the audience’s reluctancy to leave.
The one and one-half day symposium reaffirmed our belief that “where there's a will, there's a way”. Shenzhen is a vibrant and energetic city. Let’s stay tuned on what’s next.
Dr. Xiaojing Pan, Associate Research Fellow from Tsinghua University, chaired the first session.
Professor Wenbiao Gan from the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory Neurological Institute presented the first keynote speech, introducing how learning tasks lead to changes in dendritic spines, and the important role of sleep in dendritic spine plasticity and maintenance. He also discussed how inhibitory neurons regulate the balance between synaptic plasticity and stability.
Dr. Liping Wang, a principal investigator at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced the analysis of innate behavior circuits and the regulatory role of the nervous system in endocrine and immune metabolism. He also demonstrated the precise analysis of animal behavior based on unsupervised AI technology as a research tool for studying innate behaviors and emotional and behavioral responses.
Professor Tianming Gao from Southern Medical University, through screening the expression levels of various extracellular ATP hydrolyzing enzymes in different brain regions after chronic stress, found that Entpd1 / CD39, an ATP hydrolase originating from microglia cells, exhibited increased expression in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of depressed mice. He also investigated the cellular and neural circuit mechanisms through which ATP regulation influences depressive behaviors.
Assistant Professor Yan Zhao from the Southern University of Science and Technology chaired the second session.
Professor Guoqiang Bifrom the University of Science and Technology of China focused on the mesoscopic molecular architecture of neural synapses. In his presentation, he introduced the combination of cryo-electron tomography and correlative light and electron microscopy to resolve the ultrastructure of both excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and further identified the GABA receptors in the synaptic cleft by sub-tomogram averaging of the three-dimensional structure of inhibitory synapses.
Professor Mingjie Zhang from Southern University of Science and Technology presented on the topic of the mechanism of phase separation in synaptic formation and function. He demonstrated how phase separation builds dense clusters of synaptic molecules, highlighting the unique features of such dense molecular clusters in the background of synaptic formation and plasticity, and how phase separation regulates synaptic function. He also shared his latest unpublished results.
Yi Lin, a principal investigator from Tsinghua University, also presented on a topic related to phase separation. She mainly introduced the molecular mechanism and physiological function of phase separation in biological macromolecules. She also explored the role of membrane-less organelles formed by phase separation in various biological pathways within cells, as well as the potential mechanisms of phase separation in regulating biological rhythms.
As the keynote speaker of this academic symposium, Professor Yang Dan from University of California, Berkeley, gave a prenstation on "The How and Why of sleep?" She began by discussing the mechanisms by which mammals enter sleep and demonstrated a strong correlation between the behavioral characteristics of mice's movements and their EEG/EMG features. She then explained the necessity of sleep in mammals from the perspective of the regulation of body functions by the noradrenergic system of the adrenal medulla.
Dr. Bing Zhai, a principal investigator at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, chaired the third session.
Professor Yiqin Gao's from Peking University presented on the application of molecular simulation and deep learning models in biological molecular systems. He introduced the next-generation molecular dynamics simulation programs SPONGE and MindSponge, and used the analysis of chromatin three-dimensional structure, the prediction of protein and protein/small molecule complex structures as examples to introduce the possible application scenarios of these methods, as well as the theoretical and technical requirements that are extended from these applications.
Professor Yanyi Huang from Peking University presented his two latest works based on sequencing technology: Bit-seq, a new sequencing method based on fluorescence, and SPRINTseq, an in situ sequencing method based on efficient dilution encoding. He also introduced the changes in subcellular distribution of cells and transcripts in diseases analyzed through SPRINTseq, and the important inspiration derived from it.
Dr. Xun Xu from BGI Research Institute in Shenzhen highlighted the application of ultra-high resolution spatiotemporal transcriptomics. Based on DNA nanoball microarray chips and mRNA capture technology, the institute has developed Stereo-seq, the world's first spatial transcriptomics technology with an ultra-large field of view and ultra-high resolution. This technology enables transcriptome analysis of large tissue sections with nanometer-scale resolution.
Dr. Lei Zhang, a principal investigator at the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, chaired the fourth session.
Dr. Xuetong Shen, a principal investigator from the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, is developing two new fields: nuclear myosin biology and myosin cryptography. He aims to unravel the long-standing mystery of intranuclear myosin and the biological functions of myosin post-translational modifications. In his presentation, he highlighted the progress made by his research team in developing a new field of myosin biology.
Dr. Chenli Liu from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences focused on the quantitative synthetic biology. He presented the preliminary work at both the single-cell and multi-cellular levels, demonstrating the universal quantitative rules that both natural and synthetic biological systems conform to. He plans to establish a new scientific research paradigm by using data generated by automation facilities and processing experimental data and experimental design through the use of white box/black box models.
Professor Zheng Zhang's from the Southern University of Science and Technology discussed the immune pathogenesis of COVID-19 infection and the development of neutralizing antibody drugs. He presented his team's recent work on identifying a new target, RIPK1, for treating severe COVID-19 pneumonia using single-cell transcriptomics. The report also covered the molecular mechanisms underlying severe COVID-19, immunoprotection, disease progression indicators, and the development of highly efficient monoclonal neutralizing antibody drugs against mutant strains.
