The fourth Chinese Peptide Symposium, hosted by Peking University, was held at Chengdu, China on July 21 25, 1996 with 164 participants, including 45 scientists from abroad, representing 12 countries. The four day conference was both intense and spiritually rewarding. Our goal for CPS 96 was to provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities, and we believe this goal was met. The symposium consisted of 10 sessions with 55 oral and 78 poster presentations, including synthetic methods, molecular diversity and...