On August 31st 2014, 11 international experts invited by Chinese Academy of Sciences started the 3-day diagnosis and evaluation of the“One-Three-Five” Strategic Plan of Shanghai Institute of Meteria Medica (SIMM).
PAN Jiaofeng, the vice secretary-general of CAS represented the president BAI Chunli to give an opening speech and distributed the letters of appointment to all the experts.
The expert panel consists of Professor Xiaofan Wang,Professor Shaomeng Wang,Professor Ben Shen,Professor Chuan He, Professor Xiangdong Fu,who are all from USA, and Professor Laurence Patterson from UK,Professor Silman from Israel ,Professor Paul M.Vanhoutte from Hongkong,Professor Peter Shepherd from New Zealand,Professor Ronald J Quinn from Australia and Chinese Academician WANG Hongyang. Professor Xiaofan Wang was appointed as the group leader.
SHI Bing,Head of Division of Evaluation and Awards, Bureau of Development and Planning,CAS, firstly made a brief introduction of CAS,and clarified the requirements and procedures of the assessment.
Prof.JIANG Hualiang, Director Genreal of SIMM,gave the“Status Report of SIMM”, including a brief overview of SIMM, "One-Three-Five" Strategic Plan, implementation and achievements of the plan, administration of the institute, and the future perspectives.
In the past five years, the research approach of SIMM, “from targets to drugs,” was aimed to promote drug innovation through the establishment of technology platforms. Research in the fields, including pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, natural product chemistry, pharmacy and processing, has enhanced the capability of the platforms. As a result, SIMM has promoted the continuous improvement of core competencieswitha “3-in-1” focus that included major drug innovation, systemic technology platforms, and the structure and function of drug targets.
Developing new drug has been the primary focus of SIMM which includes, (1) targeting cancer and auto immune/infectious, neuropsychiatric, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, with focus on small-molecule drugs but also biological agents and traditional medicines, (2)promoting cooperation between companies, hospitals and academics to meet growing needs in healthcare and industry,and thereby promoting commercialization of drug leads, (3) equally enhancing basic and applied research to achieve the synergy,and (4) devising flexible mechanisms to enhance collaboration and to encourage open innovation.
Experts raised questions about how to attract talented scientists, to face challenges, and to reform in scientific research. In the next three days, the experts for assessment listened to the reports of three fields including "major drug innovation", "the construction of technology platform for drug research and development", "structural and functional studies of drug targets".
Moreover, they listened to 17 PI reports and hadcommunications with the institute directors, chief scientists, young scientists and graduate students. Finally, the evaluation report would be finalized.
During the communications with SIMM directors, they had discussions on the targets selection, usage of platforms, the research for natural compounds, the evaluation system, and the development of the institute in the future. The institute directors answered the questions one by one, and the expert panel was fully impressed by the achievements of SIMM, concerning the top-level design and the teamwork construction. Furthermore, consensus was reached to further strengthen the systemic integration of resources.
In the morning of September 2nd, after internal panel discussions, the assessment comments were presented to CAS leaders and institute directors. The vice president of CAS, ZHANG Yaping, and the vice president of CAS Shanghai Branch, ZHANG Xu, also attended the meeting. From the perspective of the expert panel, SIMM has already become the leader in the field of innovative drug research in China, as well as a world-class institute, and that SIMM has fully realized the goal of "One-Three-Five" strategy, and has become the model unit of "translation" in CAS.
The panel also encouraged SIMM to turn itself into one of the top twenty drug research institutes among the world, and gave suggestions concerning the systemic targets selection, the establishment of professional committee to decide the priority of platform usage, and the protection of intellectual properties.
The vice president ZHANG Yaping commented that, “SIMM is not only the leader of drug research in China, but also has world-class platforms, and CAS will fully support SIMM to go global and be the leader worldwide.”
Photo of Expert Panel
PAN Jiaofeng, the vice secretary-general of CAS gives an opening speech.
PAN Jiaofeng distributes the letters of appointment to all the experts
On September 2nd, the expert panel is giving feedbacks concerning the three-day assessment
The chair of the expert panel, Wang Xiaofan is giving summary assessment comments
The Vice President of the CAS, Zhang Yaping is giving a speech
The Vice President of the CAS Shanghai Branch, Zhang Xu attends the meeting
The Director of SIMM, Jiang Hualiang is giving a speech
SHI Bing is introducing the assessment workflow and requirements
The group photo of the expert panel with the graduate student representatives
