During October 14-November 2, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (TIB, CAS) hosted the International Training Course on Industrial Synthetic Biotechnology (ITC-ISB) sponsored by the CAS. 21 young S&T personnel from ten “Belt &Road” countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Turkey attended the training course.
On the opening ceremony, Prof. Jibin Sun, the Deputy Director-General of TIB gave a welcome address and introduced the disruptive impact of Industrial Synthetic Biotechnology for the social-economic sustainable development. Mr. Boxuan Gao, Program Officer, Bureau of International Cooperation, CAS, Mr. Cheng Zhong, Deputy Director, Division of International Cooperation and Exchange, Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Bureau and Prof. Bo Yu, Deputy Director, CAS-TWAS Center of Excellence for Biotechnology introduced CAS’s vision, major S&T achievements, International cooperation, Tianjin’s S&T status, key areas and International cooperation, and the CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence for Biotechnology’s objective , information system on Biotechnology, job and education, actions on promoting international cooperation, respectively.
After that, Prof. Jibin Sun gave a presentation to introduce TIB’s history, mission, research areas, representative research progress on industrial enzymes, bio-manufacturing of commodity chemicals, the microbial production of plant natural products and so on, industrial collaboration and the international cooperation and the overall of the National Technology Innovation Centre for Synthetic Biology hosted by TIB. With his guide, the trainee also visited the core facility of TIB including high-throughput screening, systems biotechnology, fermentation process optimization, pilot-scale testing, and genome synthesis.
The ITC-ISB is focused on the theory, practice and application of the Industrial Synthetic Biotechnology. 18 famous scholar such as Prof. Sang Yup Lee, Prof. Mattheos A. G. Koffas, Prof. Yinbo Qu, Prof. Dunming Zhu at home and abroad gave technical courses to introduce the basic theory, methodology, technological progresses and applications of synthetic biotechnology in various fields such as health products, materials, chemicals, fuels, food and feed additives. 6 including Prof. Hui Song and Prof. Hongwu Ma from TIB gave experimental courses to teach the basic principal and procedure of the enabled technology on synthetic biology such as high-throughput screening technology, genome editing, metabolic network analysis and pathway design. Besides the indoor courses, the site visits to enterprises including COFCO Nutrition &Health Research Institute and Shandong Shouguang Juneng Golden Corn Co., Ltd. are also arranged. Moreover, Mr. Zhida Jiang the Editor of China international studies was invited to give a cultural course named Chinese Traditional Culture and the World.
During the closing ceremony, Prof. Xuerong Xing, the Deputy Director-General of TIB awarded the graduation certificate for the trainees. The training course improved the capacity building on industrial synthetic biotechnology, some collaboration potentials were discussed which laid the foundation for the future international cooperation among the Bele & Road countries.
