An international delegation led by Prof. Tom WILEMAN visited LVRI
From September 21st to 28th 2016, a delegation of the international group led by Prof. Tom WILEMAN, the director of Biomedical Research Centre (BMRC), Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia (UEA) and Prof. Gang LONG, one of principle investigators of Institut Pasteur of Shanghai (IPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) came to visit Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute (LVRI), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), establishing the China-UK relationship for “Exchange of Vaccine Technology for the Delivery of oral Vaccines to Mucosal Surface (OMVs)”.
On September 22nd 2016, Prof. Hong YIN, the director of LVRI met Prof. Tom and Prof. Gang, and the other four members of the delegation and welcome them to Lanzhou. Dr. Zhijie Liu, a research fellow and the deputy director of Sci-Tech management department of LVRI, traced the early creation and introduced the development of the institute to the visiting guests.
Image: China-UK partners pose for a photo during research and academic exchange in LVRI (From left to right: Xingwen BAI, Yanmin LI, Gang LONG, Zhidong ZHANG, Tom WILEMAN, Hong YIN, James STEWART, Simon CARDING, John STEELE, Régis STENTZ, Xiangpin YIN, Guozheng CONG).
Six wonderful lectures titled “Autophagy and innate defence against viral infection” were also made by Prof. Tom and “Gut microbes and health research at Institute for Food Research” by Prof. Simon Carding (Institute Strategic Programme Leader, Institute of Food Research, IFR), “Airway defenses against viral infection” by Prof. James Stewart (Chair of Molecular Virology, University of Liverpool), “Going green: using plants to produce vaccines” by Dr. John Steele (Postdoctoral Scientist, John Innes Centre, JIC) and “The unique feature of hepatitis C virus transmission” by Prof. Gang, and “Extracellular vesicles released by intestinal bacteria mediate cross-kingdom dialog in the gut” by Dr. Régis (Research Scientist, IFR), at academic hall on the 8th floor of “State Key Laboratory on Veterinary Etiological Biology” building, on the morning of 22nd, 23rd, 27th, respectively. In the meantime, they enjoyed talking about common interests in English, with Sci-Tech workers and postgraduate students of LVRI and Research and Development Department, China Agricultural Vet. Bio. Science and Technology CO., LTD.
This visit was sponsored by China Partner Award, from Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Prof. Zhidong ZHANG, the chief scientist of Viral Diseases of Grazing Animals Group, acted as the domestic inviter for the first round action. Basically, the Chinese members of the international cooperative program also include Prof. Zengjun LU (Chief Scientist) and Dr. Xingwen BAI (China Principle Investigators of the financial project) of Host Antiviral Infection and Immunobiology Group, LVRI and Prof. Jianhua WANG of IPS, CAS. Chinese and British specialists have discussed opportunities for collaboration in three main areas: (i) the potential for using OMVs and plant-based vaccines for viral diseases of farmed animals and humans; (ii) the development of gut and lung organoid cultures from humans and farmed animals to study innate immune responses of mucosal surfaces to vaccines and adjuvants; and (iii) select projects allowing early career scientists to pilot new vaccine formulations. With the successfully completion of the decided annual task, both sides agreed to further expand on exchange of early stage researchers to conduct initial studies in partner labs. The partnership will hold the second round of workshops in UK on May 2017.
The entire activities had attracted far more people than anticipated, and already received a great deal of support from OIE/China National Foot-and-Mouth Disease Reference Laboratory, Viral Diseases of Grazing Animals Group, Host Antiviral Infection and Immunobiology Group, Livestock and Poultry Zoonotic Diseases Group, Veterianry Bionanomaterials and Bionanotechnology research Group and Research and Development Department, China Agricultural Vet. Bio. Science and Technology CO., LTD etc. We have to say thank you to Prof. Yanmin LI, Dr. Guozheng CONG, Dr. Xiao Dong QIN, Ph.D candidate Yang YANG, Dr. Jing ZHNAG and Mrs. Yanyan CHANG, for their contribution in the past few days.
By Xingwen BAI
30th Sept. 2016
