Chinese and Japanese experts discussed the latest developments in membranes at the China-Japan Joint Symposium of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society of Japan, held online on Sept 17.

The online symposium was jointly organized by the Biophysical Society of China (BSC) and Japan and chaired by doctor Hu Junjie from the Institute of Biophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, doctor Rikiya Watanabe from Tokyo-based Riken scientific research institute and doctor Hiroko Bannai from the school of advanced science and engineering at Japan's Waseda University.

Doctor Hiroko Bannai hosted the symposium while Yoshie Harada, president of the Biophysical Society of Japan, made the opening address.

The symposium was started with a report on the latest development of molecular mechanisms that regulate secretions of the sonic hedgehog, presented by Guo Yusong, a docter from Division of Life Science, at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Riken assistant professor Satomi Matsuoka then talked about self-organization in cellular polarity signaling reconstituted by single-imaging based on single-particle simulation.

This was followed by a report on the mechanism for mitochondrial outer membrane fusion given by Gao Song from Sun Yat-sen University. Riken's Masataka Yanagwa, Zhuang Min from Shanghai Tech University and Kenichi Suzuki from Gifu University also gave speeches on the symposium theme. 

The symposium was concluded with a report on the fusion of the inner mitochondrial membrane given by Hu Junjie. Hu also made the closing speech, expressing gratitude to the organizers and participants and urging for more academic cooperation between China and Japan.

During the symposium, participants posed questions online and had discussions with journalists. Attendees from both sides also talked about exchange visits between researchers and the current conditions for biophysical studies.