The First International Conference on Marine Microbiology was recently held in Qingdao, a coastal city of Shandong province, with over 300 scholars participating.

Twenty-two experts from the United States, Canada, Britain, Japan and other countries and regions made special reports, while over 20 experts and scholars made theme reports at the conference.

The conference was divided into six sub-themes: the role of marine microorganisms in the global biogeochemical cycle, microbial oceanography, marine microorganisms in deep sea and polar, aquaculture of marine microbiology, marine microorganisms in biological engineering, signal transmission between species and within species -- the unexploited therapeutic targets.

Experts and scholars expressed their views on the research focus and difficulty of contemporary marine microbiology.