On August 27, the Institute of Translational Medicine, Tianjin Union Medical Center, NKU, jointly established by NKU and Tianjin Union Medical Center, was inaugurated. The Institute aims to build an open innovation platform based on Tianjin and facing the major national needs, promote the deep integration of clinical medicine and basic scientific research, and serve the Healthy China strategy.

Cao Xuetao, President of NKU and an academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Fan Daiming, Former Vice President of Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases of the Air Force Military Medical University of PLA, Zhu Siwei, Director and President of Tianjin Union Medical Center and Dean of the Institute of Translational Medicine of Tianjin Union Medical Center, and Wang Lei, Vice President of NKU and Dean of the Institute of Translational Medicine of Tianjin Union Medical Center, attended the inauguration ceremony held in Tianjin Union Medical Center and unveiled the nameplate of the Institute.

After the establishment ceremony of the Institute of Translational Medicine, Wang Lei and Zhu Siwei hosted a high-end forum on translational medicine.

At the forum, Academician Fan Daiming gave a keynote report entitled Thoughts on the Development of Medicine after Epidemic. Academician Xu Jianguo, Academician Zhang Yingze, and Academician Zhang Xue each delivered an academic report, entitled New Explanation of Chinese Intestinal Microflora, Ten Major Relationships of Medical Innovation, and Answers to Clinical Scientific Questions, respectively.

Jiang Baoguo, President of Peking University People’s Hospital, Han Weidong, Director of the Department of Biotherapy, PLA General Hospital, researcher Wang Jiangyun from the Institute of Biophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Liu Lin from the School of Life Sciences, Professor Yang Rongcun from the School of Medicine, and other experts and scholars delivered academic reports and made exchanges on the subjects of the mathematical model of stratified treatment and urban prevention and control of severe COVID-19, translational medicine in tumor immunotherapy, synthetic biology of gene codon expansion, heterogeneous telomere and transcriptional molecular characteristics of tumor stem cells revealed by the analysis of the same single cell, intestinal microecology and major human diseases, etc.

Professor Wang Lei, Vice President of NKU, and Professor Zhu Siwei, Director and President of Tianjin Union Medical Center were appointed as co-deans of the Institute of Translational Medicine of the Tianjin Union Medical Center, NKU. The Institute will use the resources of Tianjin Union Medical Center in medical treatment, especially the clinical diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, and the research strength and disciplinary advantages of NKU in immunology, microbiology, oncology, neurophysiology, food nutrition, epidemiology, and artificial intelligence, introduce and cultivate world-class research teams, focus on cutting-edge scientific issues, and build an international high-level research institute covering prevention, diagnosis and treatment, basic research, and achievement transformation. The Institute will set up 6 research centers, focusing on scientific issues related to digestive system health and carry out high-level collaborative research. At the first phase, the priority will be given to the construction of 4 research centers, that is, research centers for digestive system tumors and neurophysiology, for pathology and molecular diagnosis of gastrointestinal diseases, for intestinal microbiology and immunology, and for tumor stem cell therapy and gastrointestinal nutrition, and gradually complete the medical artificial intelligence research center and the precision medical research center.

NKU and Tianjin Union Medical Center established a close cooperation in teaching and scientific research in 2009, and Tianjin Union Medical Center also uses the name of Tianjin Union Medical Center, NKU. Tianjin Union Medical Center is a practice base for joint training of master postgraduates in clinical medicine of NKU. It has trained more than 1,000 undergraduates, masters and doctoral students for the School of Medicine of NKU. At present, the two sides have very good cooperation in various medical fields such as tumor immunity, digestive disease diagnosis and treatment, and intestinal microbiology. They have undertaken 35 scientific research projects at or above the provincial and ministerial level, including 14 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.