The 9th Kunming Biology Summer Course, CAS, hosted by KIZ, state key laboratory of genetic resources and evolution, Yunnan University state key laboratory of bio-resources protection and utilization, sponsored by Kunming Ruike Technology Company, was held from August 1st to 10th, 2011, which attracted About 50 undergraduate/graduate students from nation-wide universities/institutions. This annual event is a great opportunity for young students getting together to learn, think and communicate.

A key theme of the Summer Course was the intertwining of complex interrelationships between genes, living organisms and environment by integrative biology, in which the important roles of evolution were also highlighted. The Summer Course invited three world-known evolutionary scientists: Prof. Michael Lynch from Indiana University, Prof. Zhaolei Zhang from University of Toronto and Prof. Adam Siepel from Cornell University to give lecture series. In addition, Prof. Wen Wang (evolutionary genomics), Bing Su (comparative Genomics), Yaping Zhang (molecular evolution and evolutionary genomics), and other PIs from KIZ, XTBG, CAS, and Australia Academy of Science also delivered lectures covering their own research fields.