Organized by BIG Data Center of Beijing Institute of Genomics (BIG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the 2nd Big Data Forum for Life and Health Sciences, was held in BIG during 10th-13th October, 2017. Approximately 200 participants attended this forum.

Prof. ZHANG Dexing, Deputy Director of BIG gave a warm welcome speech in the beginning, Prof. BAO Yiming, Director of the BIG Data Center, introduced the current status and future directions of BIG Data Center. Twenty-seven invited speakers reported and discussed their latest work and progresses, which, among others, cover “life and health big data sharing”, “precision medicine data management and mining”, “plant genome annotation and analysis”, “non-coding RNA and epigenetic regulation”, and “protein-protein interaction network and knowledgebase”.

The achievements of BIG Data Center are highly recognized by the participants, especially in the important role of BIG Data Center in big biological data collection and sharing around the world. Many of them expressed interest in establishing collaboration with BIG Data Center, and would give full support to form “Global Union of Omics”. The success of this forum has strengthened the exchange of domestic and foreign experts in the field of life and health big data and will enhance the influence of BIG Data Center at home and abroad.

This forum is supported by the International Health Big Data Sharing Plan of CAS’s International Big Science Project and the International Omics Data Sharing Plan of the National Key Research Development Plan, and the Open Biodiversity and Health Big Data Initiative of IUBS. Speakers came from Harvard University, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), National Institute of Agricultural Research in France, Russian Academy of Sciences, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam University in Pakistan, DDBJ Center in Japan, Peking University, Fudan University, and other institutions/universities.