It gives me great pleasure, in my capacity as the President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS), to cordially invite the global physiology community to participate in the 39^th IUPS Congress, which is scheduled to take place on May 7-11, 2022, in Beijing, China. The host society for this Congress is the Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences (CAPS).

The 39^th IUPS Congress was originally scheduled for August, 2021, but has been postponed to May of 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After almost two years of lockdown and cancelations of international meetings, we envisage the 39^th IUPS Congress in Beijing will be a welcoming scientific event for all physiologists. The Congress will adopt format for participants to join all congress events online. The host society is committed to installing the appropriate facilities for real-time and/or pre-recorded presentations, as well as opportunities of real-time discussions and small-group networking for participants.

The International Scientific Program Committee, under the stewardship of the Co-Chairs, Professors Ulrich Pohl and Ying-Shing Chan, and working concertedly with the IUPS Executive Committee and Professor Yun Wang, President of CAPS, has generated a scientific program with depth and breadth. The 39^th IUPS Congress will feature 7 plenary and 21 keynote lectures, 48 symposia, 48 young investigator oral communications, along with special symposia on education, ethics and Physiome, poster presentations, as well as workshops on publication and research proposal preparations.

The discipline of physiology has changed substantially in contemporary biomedical science. As the boundary of physiology extends to embrace genetics, cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology, and more recently bacteria that exist in our GI tract, the need to integrate the information collected from micro to macro levels for the understanding of whole-body functions becomes the key issue to the translation of bench research to clinical application and back. Therefore, the theme of this Congress, “Marvels of Life Integration and Translation”, succinctly reflects the notion that the essence of human life in its fullest form represents a well-coordinated operational framework that integrates every level of functional execution, one that links genes, proteins, cells and organs to the whole body, a process we call physiology. Therefore, I invite physiologists from around the world to attend the 39^th IUPS Congress for a celebration of our discipline.

I look forward to welcoming you to a scientific feast in Beijing in May, 2022!