The 1992 Chinese Peptide Symposium was held at Hangzhou, China on November 3--6, 1992 with 152 participants, including 46 from abroad, representing 10 countries. The three days conference was both intense and spiritually rewarding. The Biennial Chinese Peptide Symposium was aimed to provide a forum for advancing the exchange of knowledge, cooperation and friendship between the international and Chinese scientific communities. In order to exchange ideas and review the latest progress in depth, the scientific sessions were held at the mornings and evenings, while afternoons were devoted to social interaction and sightseeing of the unparalleled beauty of Westlake. For realizing the goal to catch up with a fast evolving and fascinating field, the Program Committee arranged eight sessions with 45 oral presentations and 72 posters on topics relating to peptide conformation, design, hormone and bioactive peptides, neuropeptides, recognition, synthesis and methodology in the Symposium and selected 94 articles for publication in this proceedings. As an organizer I was greatly encouraged by the active response of invited speakers and moved by enthusiastic cooperation and excellent contributions which led to the great success of the Symposium, since their presentations were of high quality and represented the latest advances in all aspects of peptide chemistry and peptide biology. Many authors concentrated their attention to a great challenge which peptide chemists have nowadays to face, i. e.