Cooperation and Partnerships
In 2023, government departments or institutional organizations from nearly 40 countries,
including Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Serbia, and Indonesia, conducted mutual visits with BGI Group to
exchange ideas on platform construction, the medical industry development, and talent training.
International Cooperation
In 2023, BGI Group conducted mutual visits with government departments or institutions from dozens
of countries.
In February, BGI Group
donated a gene sequencer to the South African Medical
Research Council (SAMRC).
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In June, BGI Group signed a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Environment, Water,
and Agriculture (MEWA). The agreement focuses on biogenetic resource preservation,
agriculture modernization, and environmental management.
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In September, the Minister of Health of the Republic of
Indonesia, Budi G. Sadikin, conveyed his warmest wishes to BGI Group and celebrated the
organization’s 24th
anniversary as a year filled with outstanding achievements and invaluable partnerships with
Indonesia.
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In November, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and her delegation paid a visit to the
Multi-Omics Joint Center, a collaborative endeavor between the Chinese Academy of Sciences'
Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology and BGI-Research. Prime Minister Brnabic
acknowledged BGI's achievement and expressed her gratitude for BGI’s contributions to
Serbia.
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Voices from Partners
In March, Professor Chris Marine, Science Director at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer
Biology in Belgium, and Professor Oliver Bechter, a Medical Oncologist and Professor at KU
Leuven, UZ Leuven, shared their research achievements on melanoma cells using BGI Group's
spatiotemporal omics
technology. Professor Marine praised the technology by noting, “Breakthroughs in
understanding
health and disease require transformative technologies! Thanks to BGI for their continued
efforts to bring innovative tools to the scientific community.”
Professor Oliver Bechter (left) with Professor Chris Marine.
In August, Professor Rajeev Varshney, a Fellow of the Royal Society, Director of the Centre for Crop
and Food Innovation, Director of the Western Australian State Biotechnology Centre, and
International Chair in Agriculture and Food Security at Murdoch University, Australia, commented on
the collaboration with BGI, noting: “One key thing with BGI Group is
that they are not just a
service provider. When they work with a scientist or research institute, they work as true
collaborators in terms of their data analysis, in terms of their interpretation.”
Professor Rajeev Varshney in a glass house at Murdoch University.
Women's Health
BGI Group provides SeqBRCA™-Breast Cancer and Ovarian Cancer Susceptibility Genes BRCA1/2
Genetic Risk Assessment, as well as BGI SENTIS™ Hereditary Cancer Screening for early detection
of breast cancer and other cancer types.
In July, BGI Genomics, a subsidiary of BGI Group, achieved "Good" ratings in all assessed
categories in the College of American Pathologists (CAP) BRCA-A 2023 BRCA1/2 Sequencing
evaluation program at three of its
medical testing laboratories located in Denmark, Shenzhen, and Tianjin. BGI has maintained the
tradition of participating in the CAP PT program annually, and its laboratories located in
Denmark, Australia, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Tianjin have consistently received a "Good"
performance rating.
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Perennial Rice
Perennial rice has been successfully cultivated in Africa and Southeast Asia, yielding positive
outcomes in crop production. Notably, the perennial rice grown in Madagascar has achieved an
average yield exceeding 10 tons per hectare, leading to significant cost reductions for the
local
farmers.
Local farmers in Madagascar are harvesting perennial rice.
Transforming Deserts into Fertile Farmlands
BGI Group is working to find ways to transform arid deserts into fertile farmland. In addition
to
converting sand into a solid soil mass to enhance its water retention capability, BGI has
isolated more than 400 strains of functional bacteria. These microorganisms are integral to
promoting crop growth in desert-transformed farmlands, such as those in the Ulan Buh Desert of
Inner Mongolia. In these
regions, sorghum yields exceed 3,600 kilograms per acre, surpassing the national average in
China by 1.5 times.
Desert-transformed farmlands in the Ulan Buh Desert of
Inner Mongolia. Left:untransformed desert; right:
sunflower planting area after transformation
Talent Development
In 2023, BGI College signed strategic cooperation or joint training agreements with 35
universities or institutions in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and launched its first
large-scale international
student training program, enrolling students from 10 countries or regions. And also,
successfully signed 16 strategic cooperation and joint training agreements, thereby initiating
the first batch of large-scale training programs for international students.
10.The international scholars' hands-on experiment simulation session in a BGI laboratory.