We are delighted to announce the successful completion of the 14th International Symposium on DNA Damage Response & Human Disease (isDDRHD-2023), held from November 3rd to November 5th, 2023 at the Yuehai Campus of Shenzhen University (SZU). The Symposium was organized by the SZU Medical School, the Guangdong Key Laboratory for Genome Stability and Disease Prevention, the Carson International Cancer Center, the Chinese Society for Cell Signal Transduction, and the SZU General Hospital-Dehua Hospital Joint Research Center on Precision Medicine. Professor Xingzhi Xu, Executive Dean of the SZU Medical School, served as the meeting president, with  Dr. Zhao-Qi Wang (Shandong University) serving alongside him as co-organizer.

The isDDRHD focuses on the latest research advances and questions concerning the DNA damage response, genome stability and cancer. This conference series was initiated as the Sino-German DNA Repair meeting in 2010 and has since evolved into an annual international symposium. Over the past 13 years, isDDRHD has earned the reputation as one of the strongest and most respected research conferences in China. Indeed, this conference consistently attract several hundred outstanding speakers and world-class researchers from the USA., Europe, and Asia.  

Professor Xueji Zhang, Vice President of SZU, and Prof. Xingzhi Xu, Executive Dean of the SZU Medical School, delivered welcome speeches.

The opening ceremony was co-chaired by Professors Stephen West and Feilong Meng on November 3rd. Here, Professors Xueji Zhang (Vice President of Shenzhen University) and Zhao-Qi Wang (Member of the European Academy of Sciences) delivered welcome speeches. Next, Professors Xiangdong Fu (Westlake University, China), Jan Karlseder (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA), and Stephen West (Francis Crick Institute, UK) delivered keynote speeches on “Aging and Cancer: Two Sides of the Same Coin?”, “The regulation of proliferative boundaries by telomeres, mitochondria and innate immunity” and “Double Strand Break Repair: Structures, Functions and Insights into Cancer Therapy”, respectively, discussing their latest research results on aging, tumor and genomic instability, the relationship between telomeres, mitochondria and natural immunity as well as the DNA double-strand break repair.

Keynote speeches by Prof. Xiangdong Fu of Westlake University, Prof. Jan Karlseder of The Salk Institute for Biological Studies (USA), and Prof. Stephen West of Francis Crick Institute (UK) and Fellow of the British Academy/Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA

On the subsequent days, more than 20 world-leading experts and scholars from abroad gave inspiring lectures during the conference, including: Professors Ian David Hickson (Fellow of both the British Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society), Stephen Kowalczykowski (Fellow of the American Academy of Sciences and University of California at Davis, USA), Zhao-Qi Wang (Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences), Stephen West (Fellow of the British Academy of Sciences/Foreign Member of the American Academy of Sciences), Jean-Yves Masson (Member of Canadian Academy of Medical Sciences/CHU de Québec Research Center), Zhenkun Lou (Mayo Clinic, USA), Julian Stingele (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany), and Hisao Masai (Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan). Each speaker shared their latest research progress and expert insight into the field. More than 20 scientists from China also shared their latest research achievements, including: Academician Guoliang Xu (Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), and Professors Jiadong Wang and Dongyi Xu (Peking University), Binbing Zhou (Shanghai Jiaotong University), Jun Huang (Zhejiang University), Xiangdong Fu and Xiaochun Yu (Westlake University), Guo-Min Li and Chuan-Yuan Li (Capital Medical University) and Lei Shi (Tianjin Medical University).

We were also delighted to hear from Feng Chen — a first year PhD student in Biology at SZU, who was selected as a guest speaker to give a 15-minute oral presentation at the symposium. Four excellent posters were also acknowledged with the “best poster” award: Jung Eun Kim (The University of Hong Kong), Hujun Xue (New York University School of Medicine), Shubo Zhao (Ludwig-Maximilans-University Munich), and Wen Zong from Shandong University.

Academic presentations by speakers

The quality of the symposium was highly praised by the ~300 international and domestic scholars in attendance. Each speaker reported their latest progress in international cutting-edge research, inspiring the audience and instigating exciting discussions and new collaborations. Undoubtedly, research into the DNA damage response and genome stability will remain a critical research direction at the SZU Medical School, which will continue to develop in the future.

Group photo of the isDDRHD 2023 participants

The 20th Ataxia-Telangiectasia Workshop (ATW-2024, http://www.isddrhd.com/) and the 15th International Symposium on DNA Damage Response and Human Disease (isDDRHD-2024) will be held on October 17-20th 2024 at Shenzhen University. The ATW meeting will cover molecular and cellular studies of ATM and its interacting networks in DNA damage-related or non-related signaling and the clinical aspects of the disease. The theme of this joint meeting is A-T molecular & clinical networks and genome stability. We are looking forward to you joining us in Shenzhen in 2024.