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 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.