The International Society of Biocatalysis and Biotechnology (ISBB) was established on December 6, 2006. Back to the early spring of 2005, Dr. Ching T. Hou of the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR), ARS, USDA, Peoria, Illinois, USA, and President Jei-Fu Shaw of the National Chung Hsing University (NCHU), Taichung, Taiwan, decided to organize an International Symposium on “Biocatalysis and Biotechnology” at NCHU. After two successful international symposia; October 2005 on “Biocatalysis and Biotechnology: Functional Foods and Industrial Products” and December 6, 2006 on “Biocatalysis and Bioenergy” at NCHU, Taichung, Taiwan, majority of the invited Symposium attendee decided to establish a society named “International Society of Biocatalysis and Biotechnology (ISBB)” and elected Ching T. Hou as President and Jei-Fu Shaw as Vice President of ISBB. In 2010, ISBB expanded its scope, and its Board decided to change its society name to the International Society of Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology (ISBAB) (http://www.isbab.org).

        ISBAB has become well-known in the world scientific community with many successful annual Symposia/Meetings in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the USA, the Slovak Republic, Canada, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. After each symposium, we publish a book: 2005 “Handbook of Industrial Biocatalysis” by CRC Press; 2006 “Biocatalysis and Biotechnology for Functional Foods and Industrial Products” jointed published by AOCS Press and CRC Press; 2007 on “Biocatalysis and Bioenergy” by John Wiley & Sons; 2008 on “Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology” by CRC Press, and 2009 on “Biocatalysis and Biomolecular Engineering” by John Wiley & Sons.

        In 2009, the ISBAB Board decided to launch its official journal initially as “ISBAB Special Issues” in “New Biotechnology” for a period before it had its own official journal. The first issue of “ISBAB Special Issues” was published in October 2009. Since then, we successfully published eight ISBB Special Issues in New Biotechnology. With this success, the official journal "Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology (BAB)" was published from January 2012 to November 2025 with Elsevier. The new official journal is launched. 

              In 2010, the ISBAB Board approved the election of ISBAB Fellows to honor their scientific achievements and also established “World Academy of Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology” (WABAB) to accommodate ISBAB Fellows. The first ISBAB Fellows (WABAB members) were elected in May 2011.

        The 15^th ISBAB Symposium/Meeting was held at Hiroshima, Japan, on September 19-21, 2019, and the 16^th ISBAB Symposium/Meeting will be held at NCHU, Taichung, Taiwan, on November 9-11, 2022.