Editorial
Editorial: IUPAB2024 Congress in Kyoto
2024 Volume 21 Issue Supplemental2 Article ID: e212001
Details
2024 Volume 21 Issue Supplemental2 Article ID: e212001
We publish a Special Issue of Biophysics and Physicobiology for the IUPAB2024 congress in Kyoto. First, a concise report is provided about the IUPAB2024 Kyoto conference, from the viewpoint of the conference chair. The conference was held from June 24 to 28, 2024. Under the conference theme, “Rocking out Biophysics!”, the conference provided widely various type of events: lectures, session, seminars as well as social events. The conference successfully attracted over 1900 participants widely from the world, forming the largest platform for biophysics that greatly enhanced the interexchange of cutting-edge idea and social networking among participants. The abstracts of almost all the oral and poster presentations are attached with this report as the Supplementary materials.
In this special issue, we provide a report of the Round Table Discussion, which was held just before the IUPAB2024 congress, for discussing future of Biophysics, and several reports of the Hands-on training programs.
This was the second time Japan hosted the IUPAB conference. The first time was 6th IUPAB conference in 1978 at the same Kyoto International Conference Center. The purpose at that time was to connect the Japanese Biophysical Society with the global community. This time, Japan’s motivation for hosting was to introduce Japanese biophysics to young researchers worldwide and to connect young Japanese researchers with the international community. We have been strategically planning to invite the IUPAB conference since the 18th IUPAB Brisbane meeting in 2014, successfully bid at the 19th IUPAB Edinburgh meeting in 2017, and after the 20th IUPAB Foz do Iguazú meeting in 2021, we have finally reached this occasion.
The two societies organized IUPAB2024 Kyoto conference: Inter Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB), and Biophysical Society of Japan (BSJ) as the joint meeting of the 21st IUPAB Congress and the 62nd Annual Meeting of BSJ. The basic statistics are provided in Table 1.
| Date | June 24–28, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Organizing societies | IUPAB and BSJ |
| Venue | Kyoto International Conference Center, Kyoto, Japan |
| Participants | 1,918 |
| Gender | 438 of female, 1,287 of male, and others (including not-to-state, and sponsors) |
| Countries | 52 |
| Oral presentations | 216 (135 from overseas, 81 from Japan) |
| Poster presentations | 1,135 (339 from overseas, 796 from Japan) |
| Exhibitors | 38 |
The chair and the organizing committees of IUPAB2024 Kyoto firstly defined the theme of this conference as “Rocking out Biophysics!” as introduced previously (Figure 1) [1]. Although the theme was along the preference of the chair and some of the committees, this theme was determined to convey the two meanings: the biophysical sciences’ goal of “innovating life sciences with physical-chemical perspectives and technologies,” and “enjoying the scientific meetings as if they were festivals,” which is the hallmark of the atmosphere that BSJ members formed in the meetings.
In line with the conference theme, we selected three researchers for plenary lectures: Prof. Toshio Ando, Prof. Feng Zhang, and Prof. David Baker, as well as seven plenary lecture speakers (three of them were selected by IUPAB executives). All of the keynote and plenary speakers brought truly wonderful and ‘Rocking out’ talks. We asked them to choose their own favorable music/songs, which were played before their lectures when they took the stage. The conference also had many scientific sessions representing that biophysics currently cover so wide range of research fields and topics. Beside the scientific sessions, the conference had Biophysics seminars and Morning seminars in which sponsor companies or institutes provided some scientific programs associated their services/produces as well as breakfast or lunch for attendees. The statistics are shown in Table 2 and several scenes are in Figure 2. Abstracts of the oral and poster presentations are attached with this article as the Supplementary materials. Abstracts of oral presentations are included in 21_e212001_1.pdf. Abstracts of posters presented on June 25, 26, 27, and 28, 2024 are in 21_e212001_2.pdf, 21_e212001_3.pdf, 21_e212001_4.pdf, and 21_e212001_5.pdf, respectively, where the subjects are indicated on the first two pages of the individual PDF files. Abstracts of late breaking posters are in 21_e212001_6.pdf.
| Keynote/Plenary lectures | 10 (3 of keynote, 7 of plenary) |
|---|---|
| Scientific sessions | 41 |
| The young investigator Award Lecture | 1 |
| Biophysics/Morning Seminar (sponsored) | 19 |
The conference had various programs aiming at encouraging and fostering students and early-career researchers. In line with the tradition of the IUPAB congress, the Young Investigator Award was given to Prof. Hideaki Kato, who delivered the award lecture. Ten young talented speakers were selected for The 20th Early Career Awards in Biophysics Candidate Presentations, and The 20th Early Career Awards in Biophysics were awarded to five researchers. The poster presentation awards were given to young researchers as the IUPAB2024 Student and Early Career Researcher Poster Awards.
Another theme of this conference was the discovery and nurturing of young talents. To this end, we held six Hands-on Training courses for students and young researchers from around the world to learn cutting-edge biophysical techniques. In each course, young researchers learned techniques such as high-speed AFM, advanced imaging, and molecular dynamics simulations. Each training programs was conducted before or after the conference at various institutes (Table 3). Sixty-six young researchers joined the programs: 27 from overseas (16 countries) and 39 from Japan. In the main program of IUPAB2024, symposia linked to each course were organized for Hands-on Training course participants to deeply understand how the techniques learned in the courses are utilized in actual research.
| Program | Venue (host institute) | Organizer |
|---|---|---|
| Program A: Millions of single live cell analysis with the automated trans-scale-scope, AMATERAS | Osaka University and RIKEN Kobe Campus | Takeharu Nagai, Shuichi Onami, and Grant-in-Aid for Interdisciplinary Area “Singularity biology” |
| Program B: Visualizing the nanometer world in liquid by Bio-SPMs | Kanazawa University | WPI-NanoLSI |
| Program C: CHARMM-GUI/GENESIS MD tutorial | RIKEN Kobe Campus | Yuji Sugita, Wonpil Im, Florence Tama, Yasuhiro Matsunaga, and Kei Moritsugu |
| Program D: DNA nanomachine tutorial | Kansai University | Shin-ichiro M. Nomura, and Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) “Molecular Cybernetics” |
| Program E: Exploring multi-cellular mechanics | Kyoto University | Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) “Mechanical self-transformation of living systems” |
| Program F: Real-time single-molecule experiments with optical tweezers and correlated fluorescence microscopy | Institute for Quantitative Bioscience, The University of Tokyo | LUMICKS, The Institute for Quantitative Bioscience, The University of Tokyo |
The community of students and young researchers also voluntarily organized events related to the IUPAB conference. Society of Young Scientist in Biophysics (Japan) planned and hosted the IUPAB2024 Eve Fest. They invited students from both Japan and abroad, as well as some invited speakers of IUPAB2024, to participate in an exchange meeting focused on young researchers. This pre-conference event was attended by 105 people, including 23 young researchers from overseas and 4 invited speakers.
IUPAB2024 was also programmed to provide a forum for open, free, and vigorous discussions where attendees could enjoy communication and social networking among people from academia to industry, from senior to young, from Japan to overseas. For this purpose, the conference conducted various social events in addition to the main scientific programs (Figures 3 and 4). Starting with the Opening ceremony, the conference included Welcome Reception, and Kyoto Night, where attendees experienced various types of sake brewed in Kyoto or nearby, as well as the Congress Dinner. Along with the conference theme, musicians were invited to each event, playing various types of music. These ranged from traditional Japanese music (Gagaku) to jazz and Japanese pop, to contemporary rock and rock fused with traditional Japanese music. The fusion rock music, in particular, symbolized the cross-disciplinary character of biophysics and made a lasting impression on the congress.
As outlined above, IUPAB2024 was a landmark and memorable conference for BSJ. I believe this conference was also one of the most valuable and memorable events for other biophysics communities around the world. I believe that the lively atmosphere of the conference will lead directly to further development of the biophysics community in Japan and other countries.
I would like to acknowledge the organizations that supported IUPAB 2024: IUPAB, BSJ, and the Science Council of Japan. I am also grateful to all those who contributed to the organization of IUPAB 2024, including Manuel Prieto (ex-president of IUPAB), Anthony Watts (current president of IUPAB), Satoshi Takahashi (BSJ president), the IUPAB organizing committee members, the scientific program committee (chaired by Takayuki Nishizaka), the Hands-on Training Program (organized by Kumiko Hayashi), and Linkage Co. I also appreciate Haruki Nakamura for his kind encouragement and support for this report and the special issue.
