NSFC President Chen Yiyu met with Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Beijing on October 14, 2010 and signed an MoU of cooperation in medical research between the two agencies.
Prof. Chen welcomed Dr. Collins visit to NSFC and pointed out that the recently increasing communication and exchanges between the two agencies have paved a solid foundation for substantial collaboration. Especially since the establishment of NSFC s Department of Health Sciences in 2009, a new platform for effective support to basic research in medical sciences is now in place. Prof. Chen further mentioned that to address diseases threatening the mankind, establishing partnership between the two agencies is an action that conforms to the trend of the times.
Dr. Collins thanked Prof. Chen for receiving the delegation and gave a brief on NIH s new development. He then expressed his hope to further push the substantial collaboration between researchers in medical sciences of the two countries, by taking the advantage of the NSFC-NIH MoU.
Prof. Chen and Dr. Collins accepted media interview after the signing ceremony. They both believed that with the change of our living environment and mode of production, diseases are severely threatening mankind s lives. To address this challenge, the importance and necessity of international cooperation should be fully recognized.
China s medical research has gained immense progress in recent years and has passed its beginning stage and stepped into a fast-growing period. The exchanges and cooperation in health research between China and the U.S. is of great strategic significance in promoting governmental bilateral relations and international cooperation for global health research.
According to the NSFC-NIH MoU, the two agencies will jointly support training activities and personnel exchanges, bilateral workshops and collaborative research projects in the field of basic and translational biomedical research.
