Dr. LIU Chenli gives a lecture at IHB on March 4, 2021. (Credit: IHB)

Dr. LIU Chenli, a professor of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on March 4, 2021 for academic exchange. During his stay at IHB, he delivered a lecture titled "Quantitative to Simplicity, Synthetic to Complex: Quantitative Synthetic Biology".  

In the lecture, Dr. Liu introduced the origin of quantitative synthetic biology and pointed out that the challenge in biology was rational design ability. Using Escherichia coli as a model organism, Liu's laboratory revealed the determining factors of bacterial size, derived the new  equation of individual growth and division, revised the original two growth rules in the field, and provided the principles for the construction of biological rational design in the synthetic biology.  

Furthermore, his team revealed the mathematical law of bacterial spatial colonization, and found the "formula of spatial colonization evolution and stability" which will be helpful to the rational design and construction in the synthetic biology.  

Dr. Liu concluded that the core scientific goal of quantitative synthetic biology is to design artificial living systems rationally.  

Dr. Liu is awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He is the Director of CAS Key Laboratory for Quantitative Engineering Biology, the Director of Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology (iSynBio), the President of Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology Innovation. His works are dedicated to the research of quantitative synthetic biology, and his results have been published in Nature, Science, Nature Microbiology, PNAS and other international journals.