On the morning of Dec. 1, the Annual Biobank China 2017 & International Symposium on Precision Medicine opened in Changsha. The symposium is co-sponsored by Central South University, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Biobank and Shanghai Clinical Research Center, and organized by theSchool of Basic Medical Science of Central South University. Chen Xiang, Vice President of Central South University, serves as chairman of the symposium and Prof. Cao Ya, Prof. Gan Rongxing, Prof. Huang Jufang, Prof. Jim Vaught, Prof. Jan-Eric Litton and Prof. Andrew Brooks as co-chairmen.
Chen Xiang, Liu Jing, Director of the Division of Biological Resources and Safety of China National Center for Biotechnology Development, Liu Qi, a deputy department level inspector of China Hunan Provincial Science & Technology Department, and Yi Luxi, Deputy Director of the Health and Family Planning Commission in Hunan Province, made remarks respectively at the symposium.
This symposium focused on the establishment of the first “Biobank” in central China. “Biobank”, i.e. biological sample bank, aims to collect, handle and store biological samples and relevant information, and form a quality control, information management and application system. The construction of “Biobank” will greatly support the research on genome and functional genome, accelerate the progress of clinical research, realize large sample verification and precise research for screening of molecular diagnosis markers and drug action targets, and eventually provide scientific, reliable and irreplaceable biological resources for achieving early screening, early diagnosis, molecular classification, precise treatment and prognosis evaluation of various diseases as well as industrial development and technological advance.
The construction of “Biobank” in Central South University, led and directed by Prof. Huang Jufang, is one of the important tasks for “Demonstration of Construction and Application of the Distributed Human Genetic Resource Bank”, a key research and development project of China’s 13thFive-Year Plan. This project relies on 5 national key laboratories, 2 national engineering research centers, 1 clinical research center and more than 10 national key disciplines and key clinical specialties, where cloud information platforms and mobile terminal products that can operate safely on the Internet are developed independently as per the international first-class standard to provide personalized sharing service for the construction of sample bank; over 30 human genetic resource sample collection and demonstration sites are firstly established in Hunan; a super-large scale “Central BioBank” capable of storing up to 5 million samples is built in Central South University; a “Backup BioBank” capable of storing up to 1.5 million samples and 7 distinctly themed “Satellite BioBanks” capable of storing up to 1 million samples are built in Shanghai. This project is planned to be completed in 2018.
At the symposium, Timothy R. Billiar, Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Zhou Honghao, Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Bian Xiuwu, Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, gave reports on the standardized construction of BioBanks and the implementation of strategies to promote precision medicine based on BioBanks and made speeches respectively entitled “Stratified Management of Patients in First Aid”, “Promote Smart Healthcare: to Serve the Public with Personalized Precision Medicine”, and “Tumor Heterogeneity and Personalized Medicine”. Liu Jing, Director of the Division of Biological Resources and Safety of China National Center for Biotechnology Development, Dong Erdan, Executive Deputy Director of Medical Science Department of National Natural Science Foundation of China, Prof. Jan-Eric Litton, Prof. Hu Qingli, and Prof. Luo Xuegang also made academic exchange at the symposium.
Several hundred first-class experts on biological sample and precision medicine from National Natural Science Foundation of China, China National Center for Biotechnology Development, World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, American Association of Blood Banks, International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories, Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure, and nearly 10 world-class universities and research institutions including Stanford University, University of California-Los Angeles, Columbia University, Northwestern University and Peking University gave more than 60 reports based on 10 related symposium topics and four special exchange activities, and over 1,000 representatives from 8 countries attended this symposium.
