Algae are distributed widely on the earth, from land to ocean, from freshwater to saline water, and from the polar to the tropical regions. Algae have been part of Chinese food for thousands of years. They were used as Chinese traditional medicine and cited in Chinese literatures as early as 2500 years ago. Since 1949 China has successfully established the largest seaweed cultivation industry in the world. Algae, the essential resource of health food, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals, play an increasingly significant role in promotion of national economy and improvement of the life quality.
New challenges keep emerging in algal research, due not only to fast development of systems biology and integrative biotechnology now days, but also to exhausted land resources resulting in rapid demand for aquatic resources where algae compose the most part of primary productivity.
Faced with the above new challenges, the following hotly debated issues are proposed from phycologists, algal biotechnologists, industrial people and policy makers:
1) How to make top-down strategy of both phycological research and algal biotechnology R/D in China?
2) How to implement the sustainable development of algal industry in China?
The 312nd Xiangshan Science Conference, chaired by the three authors of this preface, held on 7-9 November, 2007 in Beijing with the theme of 'New Frontiers of Phycology', provided scientists in our field with a good platform for discussion.
The main subjects at the conference included, i.e.
1) phycological research in the era of systems biology,
2) algal biotechnology facing new national demand for resource and environment,
3) sustainable development of phycology and algal industry
4) algae and environment.