In 2024, the North Campus of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS), located in Xibeiwang Town of Beijing, was officially inaugurated as the largest architectural expansion project of the headquarters of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union College in over a century. As the first conference held at the new campus, the Third China Conference on the Development of Basic Disciplines of Medical Sciences was successfully held at the north campus of CAMS from November 28 to 29, ushering in a new chapter for the development of medical sciences. Continuing the theme of “building foundations, promoting innovation, and benefiting people’s livelihood”, this conference conducted strategic analyses and discussions on the current status and future trends of the basic discipline construction, basic education, and basic research frontiers of China’s medical sciences. Over 70 leading experts and scholars attended the conference and delivered nine keynote speeches and 39 thematic reports that focused on discipline development, medical education advancements, interdisciplinary frontiers, and achievement transformation.
Opening Ceremony
Deng Haihua, Secretary of the Party Committee of CAMS & PUMC and Vice President of CAMS & PUMC, extended warm congratulations on the successful convening of the conference and expressed sincere thanks to friends from all walks of life for their longstanding support on behalf of CAMS & PUMC. He emphasized that CAMS & PUMC shouldered the glorious mission of establishing a national core base of medical science and technology innovation systems. He hoped that this conference, focusing on the development of basic discipline construction, basic education and basic research of medical sciences, should be taken as an opportunity to fully ignite academic enthusiasm, generate insightful ideas, build consensus on education development, and promote the high-quality development of the basic disciplines of medical sciences.
Liu Dengfeng, Director-General of National Health Commission (NHC), put forward four hopes in terms of basic medical construction for the scientific and technological workers in the field of basic disciplines: to shoulder the responsibilities for basic research and original innovation, to strengthen policy supply and improve investment mechanisms to better leverage the driving and guiding role of institutional policy values, to coordinate and promote the integration of incentives for scientific and technological talent, and to strengthen management and create a healthy and normative basic medical research situation. He emphasized that CAMS should set an example in discipline construction, talent management, and environmental creation by strengthening medical research management and discipline construction continuously.
Zhou Dawang, Director-General of the Ministry of Education, conveyed the spirit of the National Education Conference. He called for the earnest implementation of the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee and the spirit of the National Education Conference to reinforce the strategic attributes of education. He pointed out that to meet the requirements of developing new quality productive forces, we should establish a virtuous cycle of education, science and technology, and talent, enhance the organization of scientific research, stabilize the support for the growth of young talent, improve the scientific and technological innovation mechanism in universities, enhance the efficiency of achievement transformation, and cultivate urgently-needed talent for developing new quality productive forces and promoting high-quality development.
The opening ceremony of the conference was presided over by Wang Jianwei, Professor and Vice President of CAMS & PUMC.
Signing Ceremony of “Industry-University-Research Integrated Development”
At the Signing Ceremony of “Science-Education Collaborative Projects”, the Institute of Basic Medicine Sciences (IBMS) signed cooperation agreements with Zhejiang University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Sichuan University, Central South University, Southern Medical University, Northwest A & F University, and Chongqing Medical University. IBMS will work together with these universities to explore more efficient and practical collaborative education models by further promoting the close interactions between talent cultivation and scientific research, fully leveraging IBMS’s platform advantages and expert strength to contribute to the cultivation of high-quality medical talent with more innovative spirit and higher practical abilities.
Agreement Signing of Science-Education Collaborative Projects
At the signing ceremony of “strategic cooperation of research-enterprise collaborative education”, IBMS signed cooperation agreements with Beijing Tri-Prime Gene Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Beijing Sino-Cell Biotechnology Group Co., Ltd., Changzhou Xitahu Institute for Frontier Technology of Cell Therapy, Genetron, GoBroad Healthcare Group, BGI Group, and Zhongji Intelligent Pharmaceutical (Nanjing) Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Together with these enterprises or new-type R & D institutions, IBMS will strive to enhance the basic application research capabilities of enterprises by cooperating with the above-mentioned enterprises or new R & D institutions in scientific research, intellectual property and achievement transfer and transformation, and talent cultivation training bases, and fully leveraging its cutting-edge knowledge, research depth and talent advantages to provide strong scientific research and achievement transformation support for the big health industry.
Signing of “strategic cooperation of research-enterprise collaborative education”
Keynote Speeches
At this conference, nine academicians and experts, including Wang Chen, Wang Qi, Mei Lin, Xiao Ruiping, Wang Jianwei, Li Wenhui, Zhou Rongbin, Zhong Qing, and Wang Qianben, delivered keynote speeches.
Professor Wang Chen, an academician of CAE and president of CAMS & PUMC, delivered a theme report entitled “Open sources for medical research with health and comorbidity cohorts”.
Wang Qi, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), delivered a wonderful speech entitled “Mankind must adjust the medical purposes and orientations”.
Professor Mei Lin from Chinese Institutes for Medical Research, Beijing introduced the development history and successful experience of the Institutes in his report entitled “Basic research and transformation of medical sciences: Introduction to Chinese Institutes for Medical Research, Beijing”.
Professor Xiao Ruiping from Peking University shared her journey in translational medicine in her report entitled “Empowering new drug development with translational medicine”.
Wang Jianwei, Professor and Vice President of CAMS & PUMA delivered a keynote speech entitled “Consolidating the scientific basis for responding to emerging infectious diseases”, in which he summarized his understanding of infectious disease prevention and control based on his years of work experience in public health.
Professor Li Wenhui from National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing delivered a wonderful report entitled “Promoting hepatitis B transformation research with basic research” from both basic research and transformation work with.
Professor Zhou Rongbin from University of Science and Technology of China systematically discussed the research progress of his team in his report “Dangerous signal sensing and aseptic inflammation”.
Professor Zhong Qing from Shanghai Jiao Tong University delivered a keynote speech entitled “Definition and functions of necrosis by sodium overload”.
Professor Wang Qianben shared the latest six-year research work of his research team on prostate cancer in his report entitled “mRNA 3 'UTR targeted therapy outcomes by restoring MHC-I expression”, providing a new strategy for the treatment of tumors.
On November 29, the keynote speeches were presided over by Liu Depei, Academician of CAE, and Wang Jing, Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of the IBMS.
Closing Ceremony
Cheng Tao, President of IBMS, expressed a warm welcome and heartfelt gratitude to the leaders, experts, and colleagues attending the conference at the closing ceremony. He stated that at this conference, experts discussed the opportunities and challenges of the development of basic disciplines of medical sciences and shared cutting-edge achievements in the research field, which jointly promoted the innovation and development of the science and technology of medicine. He hoped that by signing a series of agreements, IBMS could make more efforts to promote the seamless integration of technological innovation, talent cultivation, and technology transformation, and jointly open a new chapter in industry-university-research cooperation.
This conference was sponsored by CAMS &PUMC and organized by the IBMS of CAMS &PUMC. Participants at the conference included leadership from higher-level units, academicians and experts from CAMS & PUMC and sister institutions, leaders of IBMS, heads of relevant departments of CAMS & PUMC, guests from various partner organizations, and representatives of teachers and students from CAMS & PUMC and sister academies. The event attracted a total of nearly three million online and offline participants.