When we first beheld the warm, smooth texture of the bacterial cellulose membrane, and when the dyeing experiment that regulates microbial metabolism finally yielded the ideal natural hue, every member of our NAU-CHINA team suddenly recalled the description of the ancient Silk Road from our textbooks: More than 2,000 years ago, Chinese silk traversed deserts and oceans, carrying the warmth and craftsmanship of the East, and became a token connecting diverse civilizations. It was also at that moment that a vague idea began to take shape: Could the bio-based material in our hands become the "silk" of the new era, enabling a dialogue spanning millennia between traditional Chinese culture and synthetic biology technology?

When we first launched the "Temperature Controlled One-step Synthesis of Colored Bacterial Cellulose" project, our goal was simple —— we only wanted to find a more environmentally friendly path for the heavily polluting traditional textile industry. During our extensive research, the wisdom of ancient textile craftsmen inadvertently struck a chord with us: The ancients wove magnificent brocades using natural mulberry silk and breathed life into fabrics with plant-based dyes. Their creation philosophy of harmonizing with nature and respecting materials shared an unexpected cross-temporal rapport with our original aspiration to develop degradable bacterial cellulose and pursue low-carbon dyeing. We gradually realized that this technology should not be limited to solving environmental problems alone; it could perhaps serve as a bridge, allowing young people to discover forward-thinking wisdom hidden in traditional culture, and enabling the world to once again understand the resilience and warmth of Chinese culture through the carrier of "textiles".

Thus, the idea of setting ICII 2025’s theme as "A Dialogue Spanning Millennia —— the Modern Silk Road of Synthetic Biology" came into being. We did not want this resonance between technology and tradition to remain confined to our laboratory. We hoped to invite more like-minded peers to jointly build this modern Silk Road dedicated to synthetic biology. Every step, from initially marking potential participating cities on a map, to sending out anxious invitation emails to other teams time and again, to cheering aloud when we received the first positive response, was filled with uncertainty. Yet, our original aspiration to pass on this inspiration, linking culture and science through a new "Silk Road", kept us remarkably steadfast.

After all, from the emotional communication carried by silk on the ancient Silk Road to the technological dialogue enabled by synthetic biology today, what remains unchanged is the core of Chinese culture: openness, inclusiveness, exchange, and mutual learning. This is the spiritual thread that connects our modern endeavor to the legacy of the ancient Silk Road, and the foundation upon which we’ve built ICII.

We know that compared to the grandeur of the ancient Silk Road, ICII is still at the very beginning of its journey. But just as the ancients never imagined that silk would change the world when they planted the first mulberry tree, we also hold this hope: Starting with every experiment in the laboratory, and taking the collaboration of 13 teams as a link, our original aspiration of telling Chinese cultural stories through technology will gradually grow into an answer that belongs to our generation of researchers on this "Modern Silk Road".