Last week, I had the privilege of presenting a view of the role Duke could play as a collaborator in the annual Sino-American Science of Clinical and Translational Medicine (SAS-CTM) meeting in Shanghai. In this 3rd year of the meeting, it was really clear that China is continuing to make a huge investment in both technology and human capital in this area. We heard about 75 new translation medicine centers that have been funded by the government, massive biobanks, and significant investment in omics technology.  The Ministry of Health, the Chinese Academy of Medicine, (its NIH equivalent) and its universities are applying major energy to the effort.
Almost all major American universities are developing collaboration with institutions and investigators in China, but few have an entire campus underway as we have with Duke-Kunshan University. Although this project has been controversial, I found our Chinese colleagues to be enthusiastic about what can be accomplished there.
I presented 5 key areas in CTM where Duke can play a role that will provide mutual benefit for Duke and for China:
- Participate in and coordinate global clinical and translational research projects
- Work with Chinese collaborators on sharing knowledge and developing policy on implementation science for health improvement
- Develop a physical presence as a university
- Disseminate fundamental knowledge about clinical research through internet based training and education
- Mutually develop the new workforce needed to drive translation, focusing on the quantitative discipline (biostatistics, informatics, clinical research, global health/epidemiology and health sector management)
I was heartened by the positive response at the meeting and the excitement about the potential for expanding our joint knowledge base.
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