Chemical Biology

Chemical Biology is the use of chemical concepts and principles to understand complex biological systems at a molecular level that could not be solved separately in traditional scientific disciplines. In the past decade, the rapid development of chemical biology has not only provided numerous valuable research tools to elucidate fundamental biological mechanisms, it has also prompted the discovery of important therapeutic agents to treat human diseases. Chemical Biology has emerged as a fast-growing and exciting frontier of chemistry and is expected to be a new driving force for important future advances in medicine, synthetic biology and biotechnology. The importance of Chemical Biology research has been reflected by a collection of new research initiatives in the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, the enormous amount of resources invested by the top US Universities such as Harvard, MIT and Stanford, and the introduction of Chemical Biology curriculum in tertiary education systems. Given the excellent track record of chemistry research of Hong Kong in the past decades, it is important for the young scientists to capture the very rapid and exciting development of Chemical biology. In fact, all universities in HK have recruited young faculty members with chemical biology focus. To explore potential avenues for new collaborations and maintain the competitive advantage of HK, this ASI brings world’s leading experts in chemical biology to HK. This ASI in chemical biology will be an idea platform to train the next generation chemical biologists.