AsianScientist (Apr. 3, 2012) – Bayer HealthCare Company Ltd and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, are expanding their joint research partnership relating to the Bayer-Tsinghua Joint Research Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (BTC).
This week, both partners signed a new strategic agreement to collaborate in the area of biomedical sciences over the next three years.
“The decision to further develop this successful research collaboration underlines Bayer’s commitment to China as an important component of our innovation strategy,” said Prof. Dr. Andreas Busch, Member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee and Head of Global Drug Discovery.
Headed by Dr. Shi Yigong, Professor and Dean of School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, multiple joint research projects have been initiated at the BTC which was established by Bayer HealthCare and Tsinghua University in 2009.
The joint projects focus on different research aspects starting from early research programs to gain deeper understanding of disease mechanisms, identification of new drug targets and spanning further to joint structural biology research and medicinal chemistry programs.
“A new focus of our collaboration will be the area of structural biology, where scientists from Tsinghua University will work in close collaboration with Bayer scientists to solve the 3D protein structure of biological molecular targets as a basis for new drug discovery projects,” said Dr. Shi, a renowned structural biologist.
To further strengthen the relationship between Bayer and Tsinghua University, a Bayer endowed chair at the Tsinghua University – Institute of Biomedicine will be established in 2012, with Dr. Dong Chen as the first chair.
“The Bayer-Tsinghua Joint Research Center for Innovative Drug Discovery has established itself as an interface to foster communication between leading experts from Tsinghua University’s Institute of Biomedicine and researchers from Bayer HealthCare,” said Prof. Yuan Si, vice president of Tsinghua University.
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Source: Bayer HealthCare.
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