A delegation of researchers from Shanghai Medical College at Fudan University visited Wayne State University to share discoveries and research updates in cancer during the second "Colloquium in Precision and Translational Medicine - Genetic and Epigenetic Modulation of Cancer."

Sponsored by the Division of Research and Office of International Programs, and organized by Juri Gelovani, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Engineering and of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Professor Terrence Monks, Ph.D., of the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; and Professor of Pathology Shijie Sheng, Ph.D., of the WSU School of Medicine, the colloquium was the second joint event for the two universities, with Fudan hosting the first in 2015. Since then, several Wayne State leaders have visited Fudan to continue expanding the relationship.

In 2016 the Fudan-Wayne State Alliance for Stem Cell Translational Research Laboratory was created at Fudan. Through the jointly-run lab, technology developed at the two universities is expanding the value and implementation of health research breakthroughs around the world.

"Partnerships like this one with Fudan exponentially increase the value of what we do," Provost Keith Whitfield said. "Bringing together the experience and brainpower of some of the best minds in science today is how we learn and discover. It's how we change the world.
"I am struck by the possibilities of what we can create together. I believe we can take the expertise that we have and expand it to other programs and disciplines in the health sciences."

Both WSU and Fudan are comprehensive, urban-serving research universities with successful broad-based research and education programs in the sciences, humanities and medicine, said Steve Lanier, WSU vice president for research.

"We share a commitment to international collaboration and engagement," Lanier said. "Science provides the bonds of connectivity across different cultures, and I imagine that this collaboration on cancer is just the beginning of a very important partnership."

The Fudan partnership is one of more than 150 partnerships and agreements managed annually by the Office of International Programs, which leads Wayne Sate's global engagement by creating opportunities that foster international education and research, and provides resources that support the expansion of the university's global agenda.

The colloquium included presentations from Fei Chen, Ph.D., professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors at Wayne State; Qing-Sheng Mi, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Immunology Program and professor of Dermatology for the Henry Ford Health System; Yubin Ge, Ph.D., associate professor of Oncology for the WSU School of Medicine; Benjamin Kidder, Ph.D., assistant professor of Oncology for the WSU School of Medicine; and Professor Fei Lan of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences; Professor Wenqiang Yu, deputy director of the Institute of Genomics and Epi-genomics; and Professor Pengyuan Yang, executive deputy director of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, all of Fudan University.