ODT 2026 International Conference on Organelle-targeted Precision Diagnosis and Therapy Held Successfully
ODT 2026
Unlocking the Micro-Engines of Life: EIT Hosts the ODT 2026 International Conference on Organelle-targeted Precision Diagnosis and Therapy
17–19 September 2026, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo
Organelles are the micro-engines that keep life running, and they hold the key to decoding difficult diseases and achieving precision diagnosis and therapy.
As precision medicine advances, medical research is moving beyond tissues and cells down to the level of organelles.
Whether we can precisely read the functional state of organelles and target them for regulation and intervention bears directly on breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating major diseases such as cancer, metabolic disorders and neurodegeneration. It is one of the most cutting-edge and challenging scientific questions in biomedicine today.
On 18–19 September, the ODT 2026 International Conference on Organelle-targeted Precision Diagnosis and Therapy was held at Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo (EIT).
Under the theme "Focusing on Organelle Therapy, Opening a New Frontier in Precision Medicine", the conference featured a main forum, an AI Virtual Cell Forum and a Young Scientists Forum.
More than 200 experts and scholars from eight countries gathered on the banks of the Yongjiang River for in-depth discussions on frontier topics including organelle functional imaging and regulation, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and therapy, organoid modeling and intelligent analysis, and spatial multi-omics and its applications.
At the opening ceremony, Dongxiao Zhang, Executive Vice President of EIT and member of the US National Academy of Engineering, delivered a welcome address. He noted that EIT, a new research university that is ambitious, small and focused, innovative and international, has made life and health and the integration of medicine and engineering one of its key strategic priorities, attracting high-level talent from China and abroad and establishing a number of high-level research platforms. Going forward, the university will continue to build an open, integrated platform for international exchange, advance breakthroughs in precision diagnosis and therapy and their translation, and work with partners to explore new paths from frontier discoveries to clinical application.
Conference Chair Dayong Jin, Chair Professor at EIT and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, said that the Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Organelle Precision Diagnosis and Therapy has always aimed for world-class standards. Deeply integrating biomedicine, engineering and information science, it has made sustained progress in key areas such as organelle function regulation and nanomedicine delivery, producing a series of landmark original results. Guided by real clinical needs, the center works with more than ten leading medical institutions in China to advance medicine–engineering collaboration and multicenter clinical validation. He hoped the conference would serve as a bridge to deeper collaboration with teams in China and abroad to open a new future for precision medicine.
The Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Organelle Precision Diagnosis and Therapy, led by Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, was approved by the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission in 2024, with Dayong Jin as its director.
At the main forum, international experts including Professor Thomas Simmen of the University of Alberta, Canada, Professor Sebastian Hiller of the University of Basel, Switzerland, Professor Shigeru Yanagi of Gakushuin University, Japan, Stefan Schild of Austria, Felipe Cava of Sweden and Daniel López of Spain shared their latest findings on mitochondrial regulation and replacement therapy, organelle homeostasis and cell death mechanisms, bacterial membrane microdomains and extracellular vesicles.
Conference Co-Chair Xing-Jie Liang, Member of the Academia Europaea, presented new advances in using nanoparticles to regulate the lysosome–mitochondria interactome. Scholars including Associate Professor Liang Ge of Tsinghua University, Professor Junjie Hu of the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Da Jia of Sichuan University, Professor Yang Tian of East China Normal University, Professor Boxun Lu of Fudan University, Professor Jiangli Fan of Dalian University of Technology, Research Professor Cunqi Ye of Zhejiang University, Professor Jiaming Chen of Zhejiang University and Professor Dan Ye of Fudan University presented systematic interdisciplinary breakthroughs in unconventional secretion, super-resolution imaging probes, mechanisms of neurodegenerative disease and immunometabolism.
The conference also hosted the AI Virtual Cell Forum and the Young Scientists Forum. The AI Virtual Cell Forum covered the development of virtual cells, dynamic virtual cell agents, deep-learning-enhanced mitochondrial imaging and multimodal data acquisition from organoids, and included project pitches and a roundtable on industry investment. Industry representatives also discussed how advanced instruments, including platforms for high-spatiotemporal-resolution super-resolution microscopy, mitochondrial vesicle characterization and high-content cell painting, are being applied in basic research and drug screening.
At the Young Scientists Forum, more than ten young scientists shared their latest breakthroughs in frontier interdisciplinary areas, including nanoprobes and bioimaging, precision cancer diagnosis and therapy, targeted drug delivery, in vivo peptide self-assembly, neural electrical stimulation, micro- and nanomanipulation robots, extracellular vesicles and engineered living biotherapeutics, and the regulation of development by ancient retroviruses.
Participants agreed that the conference further connected the full chain from basic research and technology development to clinical application and industry investment, building a high-level international platform for collaboration in the emerging interdisciplinary field of organelle biology. Going forward, EIT will continue to draw on high-level platforms such as the Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Organelle Precision Diagnosis and Therapy to bring together global innovation resources, speed the translation of frontier results, and contribute to the advance of precision medicine and the upgrading of the life and health industry.
The conference was co-hosted by Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, and the Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Organelle Precision Diagnosis and Therapy, co-organized by the Ningbo Science and Technology Innovation Development Service Center and Ningbo No. 2 Hospital, and organized by Ningbo EIT Digital Intelligence Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
Leaders attending the conference included Jianjun Zheng, Party Secretary, and Boding Wang, President, of Ningbo No. 2 Hospital; Honghua Ye, President of Ningbo Medical Center Lihuili Hospital; Hongfei Weng, Party Secretary, Jiawei Zhou, Executive President, and Quanyong Yi, Vice President, of Ningbo Eye Hospital; and Tao Li, Party Secretary of Ningbo No. 6 Hospital. Representatives of the First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University and Ningbo Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine also attended, exploring new ideas for medicine–engineering integration and clinical translation of frontier diagnostic and therapeutic technologies.