Four Nobel laureates delivered academic speeches in Beijing on July 17 to discuss the latest development in life sciences and biotechnology.

At the inauguration of the 2004 Life Sciences Forum -- Nobel Laureate Day, Liu Yanhua, Chinese vice minister of science and technology, said that China is willing to cooperate with other countries to develop life sciences and biotechnology.

He estimated that biotechnology might become a backbone industry in the near future.

Norman Borlaug, who was granted the Nobel Prize in 1970, talked on the Green Revolution and gene technologies.

Hartmut Michel, a German Max Planck professor who obtained the Nobel Prize in 1988, discussed membrane proteins research and new drug development.

Ferid Murad, a 1998 Nobel laureate in medical sciences, talked on the opportunities to develop novel drugs from research with nitric oxide.

Robert Huber, who shared the Nobel in chemistry in 1988 with Michel, delivered a speech on molecular machines for protein degradation.

Some 1,000 researchers or students from the research institutes and universities in Beijing attended the lectures.

Wang Hongguang, chief of the China National Center for Biotechnology Development which arranged the activity, said he hopes the lectures will stimulate new ideas of Chinese researchers for their future work.