OVERVIEW
In the 21st century, scientific research is becoming more and more interdisciplinary. New discoveries are often made at the boundaries of different disciplines. Biology is entering a new era in which quantitative measurements and mathematical modeling play increasingly important roles in understanding and predicting biological behavior. Facing this challenge and opportunity, the Center for Quantitative Biology (CQB, formally Center for Theoretical Biology) was established in 2001,with the support of the Nobel Laureate Prof. T.D. Lee and the leadership of Peking University.As part of PKU’s strategic initiative in enhancing interdisciplinary research, CQB is dedicated to research and education at the interface between the traditional more quantitative disciplines (such as mathematics, physical sciences, engineering, computer science) and the biological sciences. CQB has a proficient teaching and research team, comprising prominent members with outstanding achievements in various fields of physic, chemistry, life sciences, biotechnology and mathematics. Up to 2015, CQB has 16 principle investigators, including one member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one recipient of the “Thousand Talent Plan”, two "Cheung Kong Scholar" Chair Professors, three "Cheung Kong Scholar" Visiting Professors and three recipients of the “Thousand Young Talent Plan”. More than 50 graduate students and 4 postdoctoral fellows are currently enrolled in CQB.
RESEARCH
Current research areas of CQB include: (i) systems biology;(ii) synthetic biology; (iii) computational biology and bioinformatics; (iv) disease mechanism and drug design from system biology perspective. The goal of CQB is to become a leading research center in the field of system biology and promote the development of quantitative life sciences.In recent years, CQB received a number of major funding supports from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Exciting and cutting-edge researches are being carried out at CQB, some of which have beenpublished in prestigious journals like Cell, Science, Nature Chemistry, PNAS, PRL, JACS, AngewChem, etc.
EDUCATION
Education has always been a priority of CQB. We made notable progress in quantitative biology course development for both graduate and undergraduate students. CQB not only provides basic courses, but also develops innovative training programs with new concepts and models. For example, in the course“Selected Papers in Quantitative Biology”, the teacher presents background materials and spends most of the time stimulating and steering the discussion aboutchosen classic papers.In this course, the students are encouraged totake over and lead the discussion. To face the challenge of interdisciplinary research, before joining a research group, each graduate student needs to rotate inthree laboratories of differentdisciplines. The prescribed coursework along with the laboratoryexperience ensures that thestudents obtainsolidknowledge required for their future research. The CQB has established a stimulating scientific culture of open discussion, ideaexchange and collaboration for faculties and graduate students.Together with the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biologyat UCSF (the University of California at San Francisco), CQB organizedthe first brainstorming workshop in 2012, which aims in stimulating students’ independent scientific thinking. In 2013, Prof. Q. Ouyang, deputy director of CQB, hosted the second brainstorm event in Peking University.And in 2014, the third brainstorming workshop,“IIAS-PKU Workshop on ‘Strategies & Design Principles in Cellular Complex Systems”,was jointly organized with the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) and was held in Jerusalem, Israel.
Up to now, more than 50 students in CQB successfully graduated and obtained PhD degree. Many of them continued research activities in world-class universities and institutions,and achieved exciting scientific progress. After finishing their postdoc training, some of them alreadystarted their independent positionin China withthe support of “Thousand Young Talent Plan”.
For the undergraduate training, the CQB hoststhe integrated science program (ISP), which is a revolutionary new science curriculum for undergraduate training in Peking University. Different from traditional programs, ISP breaks boundariesbetween disciplines and designs a series of new courses. The best teachers at Peking University from different departments are invited to design new courses integrating two or more disciplines and to teach the students in ISP.Faculties at CQB routinely host undergraduate students for their research activities. Since 2007 CQB has been the home for the PKUInternational Genetically Engineered Machine(iGEM) team.GEM competition is an international program that aims at encouraging undergraduate students to think and perform research activities independently. Many of Peking iGEM’s award-winning projects have been published in Molecular System Biology (2012), ACS Synthetic Biology(2012),Quantitative Biology(2013), and Nature Communication(2014).
ACTIVITIES
The CQB hasbeen very active in international collaborations. Besidesthe CQB Annual Symposium, CQB organized 1–2 international conferences each yearsince 2001.For example, in 2013, CQB hosted the conference “Microfluidics and Quantitative Biology”. In 2014, CQB hosted the conference “Breaking Barriers, from Physics to Biology (II)” and organized“TheFirst International Young Scholars Systems and Synthetic Biology Symposium”. With the symposium of young scientists, CQB hopes to build a bridge for young scientistswho are interested in research opportunities in China, especially in CQB at PKU.CQBhas severaljoint centersand regularly hosts short and long term international visitors.
PERSPECTIVE
In the past decade, CQB has accumulated much experience onthe research and education at interdisciplinary science. CQB’s mission is to promote research, education, international exchange and collaboration at the interface of physical and biological sciences and to become aleading international center for the emerging interdisciplinary field of Quantitative Biology.
Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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