Invited by Vladimir Bajic, Director of Computational Bioscience Research Center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, a delegation from Beijing Institute of Genomics (BIG), Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by XUE Yongbiao, Director of the BIG, has visited King Abdullah University of Science and Technology during March 25th-28th, with the purpose to increase academic communications and collaborations for the sharing of biodiversity and health big data and to jointly found the Biodiversity and Health Big Data (BHBD) Alliance.

During the visit, a Sino-Saudi bilateral academic workshop on biodiversity and health big data was held. BIG members presented seven talks on research status and future direction of the BIG, current efforts and future direction of the BIG Data Center, status of the Big Data Sharing Alliance for Biodiversity and Health, personalized medicine research based on pharmacogenomics, integration and curation of rice big data, Genome Sequence Archive and CAS Precision Medicine Project. Through the communications, the two parties reached preliminary cooperation intentions in the areas of research in biological diversity, precision medicine, and big data, academic exchanges, and personnel training, which laid a solid foundation for further bilateral academic exchanges and cooperation in the future.

The two parties conducted in-depth exchanges on the sharing of the global big data and determined relevant details, paving the way for extensive and substantive development of bilateral cooperation in the field of big data and other scientific research areas. In addition, this visit accelerates the academic exchanges and further cooperation between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

Sino-Saudi bilateral academic workshop (Image by Rose Gregorio)