From April 11th to 13th, the 4th China Conference on Intelligent Health and Bioinformatics, organized by the Chinese Association of Automation and hosted by NEFU, was successfully held in Harbin. The conference aimed to provide a high-level exchange platform for experts and scholars, share the latest research achievements, and promote innovative development in intelligent health and bioinformatics. Over 300 experts, scholars, and young researchers from both domestic and international backgrounds attended the conference. Sun Meng, the Party Secretary of NEFU, participated in the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Wang Guohua, Dean of NEFU’s College of Computer Science and Control Engineering, presided over the opening ceremony.

Sun Meng and Conference Chairman Professor Zhang Xuegong from Tsinghua University delivered their speeches during the opening ceremony. Sun Meng stated that bioinformatics, a burgeoning interdisciplinary field integrating knowledge and technology from biology, computer science, mathematics, and other disciplines, is increasingly vital in the life sciences. Northeast Forestry University possesses unique advantages in bioinformatics, with its disciplines such as biology, forestry, and ecology holding leading positions in China. NEFU is eager to collaborate with bioinformatics experts, adopting a more open approach to strengthen cooperation and exchange with domestic and international scientific research institutions, universities, and enterprises. This collaboration aims to achieve resource sharing and complementary strengths, jointly tackle critical technical challenges in bioinformatics, and advance the development of the bioinformatics discipline.

Professor Zhang Xuegong expressed his sincere gratitude to NEFU for its strong support in hosting the conference and warmly welcomed all the guests and representatives. He also briefly introduced the development of the Intelligent Health and Bioinformatics Professional Committee of the Chinese Association of Automation. He stated that integrating biomedicine and intelligent control through multidisciplinary cross-pollination will provide new paradigms for future life system research within automation science.

Opening Ceremony Scene

The conference’s keynote session featured a total of 10 presentations. These were delivered by Academician Zhang Xue, Party Secretary of Harbin Medical University; Researcher Jiang Tianzi from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Professor Zhu Yanhe from Harbin Institute of Technology; Professor Ye Kai from Xi’an Jiaotong University; Professor Zhao Xingming from Fudan University; Associate Professor Ma Jianzhu from Tsinghua University; Professor Wang Cong from Shandong University; Researcher Zhang Shihua from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Professor Li Tingting from Peking University; and Researcher Liu Shiping from BGI Group.

The conference included nine thematic forums covering a range of fields, including fundamental models in biomedicine, spatio-temporal omics for precision diagnosis and treatment, intelligent bioinformatics analysis of complex diseases, AI-driven innovative drug research and development, biomedical artificial intelligence, medical synthetic biology and quantitative biology, brain imaging and brain health, cutting-edge technologies and methods in intelligent medical health, and medical bioinformatics and systems biology.

During the parallel sessions, 58 renowned domestic experts delivered insightful presentations. Among these, the thematic report titled “Multimodal Drug Molecule Pre-training Models” by Professor Li Yang, Vice Dean of NEFU’s College of Computer Science and Control Engineering, received high recognition from his peers. At the closing ceremony, Associate Professor Gu Jin, Secretary-General of the Intelligent Health and Bioinformatics Professional Committee of the Chinese Association of Automation and Party Secretary of the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University, summarized the conference and highly commended NEFU’s hosting efforts.

The successful convening of this conference established a high-level, multi-dimensional platform for exchange and cooperation among experts, scholars, and enterprises from China and abroad. It provided a significant opportunity to advance the intelligent health and bioinformatics fields. It will inject even stronger “Chinese momentum” into the industry’s development.