"Have you tried peptides? Small proteins, the best in the land! Won't you try peptides? Keep all your body processes in hand! For labor and lactation oxytocin you must buy! Enkephalin always gives a good runner's high! So won't you try peptides? Small proteins, the best in the land!" The above words [1], penned by Gary Gisselman to open Peptide Angst: La Triviata, the opera which made its world premiere on July 1, 1999, also serve as a fitting charge to the th 16 American Peptide Symposium. This latest edition of a premier biennial series was held under the auspices of the American Peptide Society, June 26-July 1, 1999, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis,Minnesota, with the undersigned serving as Co-Chairs. The fortunate coincidence of the calendar allowed us to set as the theme "Peptides for the New Millennium", and in our judgment, the approximately 1200 participants [2] who converged in the Twin Cities from academic and industrial institutions in 36 countries were treated to an exciting and stimulating conference that left most everyone with an enthusiastic vision for the future of our field. The present Proceedings volume should serve as a handy reference source and succinct snapshot of peptide science at essentially its century mark - the clock having started with the initial contributions of Emil Fischer and Th. Curtius.

The Fifteen American Peptide Symposium (15APS) was held in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 14-19, 1997. This biennial meeting was jointly sponsored by the American Peptide Society and Vanderbilt University. The attendance of 1,081 participants from 37 countries was lower than the two previously held Symposia. However, the number of participating countries was the largest. Thus, it was gratifying to see that this meeting retained both its international flavor and participant loyalty at a time when there are many more symposia held each year on similar subjects. The scientific program, thanks to the insights and efforts of the Program Committee as well as Dr. Peter Schiller, the President of the American Peptide Society, was extraordinarily rich, diverse, and exciting. It was comprised of 124 oral and 550 poster presentations. Three prominent format changes were installed. First, the Symposium started on Saturday instead of Sunday. Second, the program opened on Saturday afternoon with a Mini-symposium by the Young Investigators to give them an early start and attention. Finally, 40 short and definitive reports were given in two parallel sessions. The expanded format permitted an unprecedented number of lectures and enabled wider participation by the attending delegates.

The Fifth Chinese Peptide Symposium, hosted by Lanzhou University, was held at Lanzhou, China July 14-17, 1998, with 156 participants, including 30 scientists from abroad, representing nine countries. The four-day conference was both intense and spiritually rewarding. Our goal for CPS-98 was to provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities, and we believe this goal was met. The symposium consisted of 8 sessions with 42 oral and 90 poster presentations, including synthetic methods, molecular diversity and peptide libraries, structure and conformation of peptides and proteins, bioactive peptides, peptide immunology, De Novo design and synthesis of proteins and peptides, ligand-receptor interactions, the chemistry-biology-interface and challenging problems in peptides. The enthusiastic cooperation and excellent contributions were gratifying and the active response of the invited speakers contributed to the success of the symposium. The presentations were of excellent caliber and represented the most current and significant aspects of peptide science. Dr. Kit Lam of the University of Arizona and Dr. Yun-Hua Ye of Peking University were the recipients of "The Cathay Award" sponsored by the H. H. Liu Education Foundation, offered for their seminal contribution in peptide science and the Chinese Peptide Symposium. Four outstanding young scientists were selected by the organizing committee to receive awards sponsored by Haikou Nanhai Pharmaceutical Industry Co. Ltd. (Zhong He Group).

The fourth Chinese Peptide Symposium, hosted by Peking University, was held at Chengdu, China on July 21 25, 1996 with 164 participants, including 45 scientists from abroad, representing 12 countries. The four day conference was both intense and spiritually rewarding. Our goal for CPS 96 was to provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities, and we believe this goal was met. The symposium consisted of 10 sessions with 55 oral and 78 poster presentations, including synthetic methods, molecular diversity and peptide libraries, structure and conformation of peptides and proteins, bioactive peptides, peptide immunology, De Novo design and synthesis of proteins and peptides, ligand receptor interactions, the chemistry biology interface and challenging problems in peptides. Theenthusiasticcooperationandexcellentcontributionsweregratifying andtheactive response of the invited speakers contributed to the success of the symposium. The presentations were of excellent caliber and represented the most current and significant aspects of peptide science. Dr. James P. Tam and Dr. Jie Cheng Xu were the recipients of 'The Cathay Award' sponsored by the H. H. Liu Education Foundation, offered for their seminal contributions in peptide science and the Chinese Peptide Symposium. Four outstanding young scientists were selected by the organizing committee to receive awards sponsored by Haikou Nanhai Pharmaceutical Industry Co. Ltd. (Zhong He Group).

The third Chinese Peptide Symposium, held in Beijing, China on June 13-17, 1994, attracted 156 delegates representing 11 countries. Nobel Laureate Professor Bruce R. Merrifield was among the 51 international participants, which included many other eminent peptide scientists. Our goal for CPS-94 was to provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities, and I believe this goal was met. The program consisted of 10 sessions, with 43 oral and 42 poster presentations. Topics included synthetic methods, molecular diversity and peptide library, design of neuroactive and other active peptides, conformation and protein modeling, peptide immunology and challenging problems in peptides. There were 75 articles selected for publication in these proceedings. CPS-94 was hosted by the Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Beijing Medical University. Professor James Tam, Professor Meng-shen Cai and I were honored to serve as Vice-chairmen and Chairperson, respectively, as recommended by the Program Committee of the CPS-92. The enthusiastic cooperation and excellent contributions were gratifying, and the active response of the invited speakers guaranteed the success of the symposium. The presentations were of excellent caliber and represented the most current and significant aspects of peptide science.

The 1992 Chinese Peptide Symposium was held at Hangzhou, China on November 3--6, 1992 with 152 participants, including 46 from abroad, representing 10 countries. The three days conference was both intense and spiritually rewarding. The Biennial Chinese Peptide Symposium was aimed to provide a forum for advancing the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities. In order to exchange ideas and review the latest progress in depth, the scientific sessions were held at the mornings and evenings, while afternoons were devoted to social interaction and sightseeing of the unparalleled beauty of Westlake. For realizing the goal to catch up with a fast evolving and fascinating field, the Program Committee arranged eight sessions with 45 oral presentations and 72 posters on topics relating to peptide conformation, design, hormone and bioactive peptides, neuropeptides, recognition, synthesis and methodology in the Symposium and selected 94 articles for publication in this proceedings. As an organizer I was greatly encouraged by the active response of invited speakers and moved by enthusiastic cooperation and excellent contributions which led to the great success of the Symposium, since their presentations were of high quality and represented the latest advances in all aspects of peptide chemistry and peptide biology. Many authors concentrated their attention to a great challenge which peptide chemists have nowadays to face, i. e.

The Fifth Chinese Peptide Symposium, hosted by Lanzhou University, was held at Lanzhou, China July 14-17, 1998, with 156 participants, including 30 scientists from abroad, representing nine countries. The four-day conference was both intense and spiritually rewarding. Our goal for CPS-98 was to provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities, and we believe this goal was met. The symposium consisted of 8 sessions with 42 oral and 90 poster presentations, including synthetic methods, molecular diversity and peptide libraries, structure and conformation of peptides and proteins, bioactive peptides, peptide immunology, De Novo design and synthesis of proteins and peptides, ligand-receptor interactions, the chemistry-biology-interface and challenging problems in peptides. The enthusiastic cooperation and excellent contributions were gratifying and the active response of the invited speakers contributed to the success of the symposium. The presentations were of excellent caliber and represented the most current and significant aspects of peptide science. Dr. Kit Lam of the University of Arizona and Dr. Yun-Hua Ye of Peking University were the recipients of "The Cathay Award" sponsored by the H. H. Liu Education Foundation, offered for their seminal contribution in peptide science and the Chinese Peptide Symposium. Four outstanding young scientists were selected by the organizing committee to receive awards sponsored by Haikou Nanhai Pharmaceutical Industry Co. Ltd. (Zhong He Group).

The Fifteen American Peptide Symposium (15APS) was held in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 14-19, 1997. This biennial meeting was jointly sponsored by the American Peptide Society and Vanderbilt University. The attendance of 1,081 participants from 37 countries was lower than the two previously held Symposia. However, the number of participating countries was the largest. Thus, it was gratifying to see that this meeting retained both its international flavor and participant loyalty at a time when there are many more symposia held each year on similar subjects. The scientific program, thanks to the insights and efforts of the Program Committee as well as Dr. Peter Schiller, the President of the American Peptide Society, was extraordinarily rich, diverse, and exciting. It was comprised of 124 oral and 550 poster presentations. Three prominent format changes were installed. First, the Symposium started on Saturday instead of Sunday. Second, the program opened on Saturday afternoon with a Mini-symposium by the Young Investigators to give them an early start and attention. Finally, 40 short and definitive reports were given in two parallel sessions. The expanded format permitted an unprecedented number of lectures and enabled wider participation by the attending delegates.

"Have you tried peptides? Small proteins, the best in the land! Won't you try peptides? Keep all your body processes in hand! For labor and lactation oxytocin you must buy! Enkephalin always gives a good runner's high! So won't you try peptides? Small proteins, the best in the land!" The above words [1], penned by Gary Gisselman to open Peptide Angst: La Triviata, the opera which made its world premiere on July 1, 1999, also serve as a fitting charge to the th 16 American Peptide Symposium. This latest edition of a premier biennial series was held under the auspices of the American Peptide Society, June 26-July 1, 1999, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis,Minnesota, with the undersigned serving as Co-Chairs. The fortunate coincidence of the calendar allowed us to set as the theme "Peptides for the New Millennium", and in our judgment, the approximately 1200 participants [2] who converged in the Twin Cities from academic and industrial institutions in 36 countries were treated to an exciting and stimulating conference that left most everyone with an enthusiastic vision for the future of our field. The present Proceedings volume should serve as a handy reference source and succinct snapshot of peptide science at essentially its century mark - the clock having started with the initial contributions of Emil Fischer and Th. Curtius.