In a ceremony today, CAS Vice President Li Jiayang and Penn President Amy Gutmann signed an institution-wide MOU to establish a strategic cooperative research relationship between the two institutions. The agreement is expected toencourage and support the international exchanges and cooperationamong CAS institutes and Penn faculties and centers. The MOU particularly endorses a strategic alliance between theInstitute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBPCAS) and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), namely the joint Center of Excellence in Brain Mapping.
“Brain mapping or biomedical imaging has become one of the most active fields in life sciences and is bringing radical changes to brain and cognitive sciences. Its value can never be over-estimated for new translational applications for better cognitive health and life in both China and USA”, said Vice President Li, “Thisjoint initiative is the first step and an important milestone in the long journey of future collaborations between CAS scientists and Penn researchers.”
A more specific, institute-level agreement was signed between IBPCAS and Penn to define the purpose, objectives and initial activities of the Joint Center with the witness of CAS Vice President Li, which was followed by an unveiling ceremony of the joint establishment.
IBP is one of the pioneering institutions for brain mapping research in China and it has been CAS’s strategy to build it into an international window for brain mapping. Penn’s neuroimaging program is recognized not only for its continued development of novel approaches for image acquisition and analysis, but also for its numerous clinical neuroimaging programs that translates these discoveries into applications to promote human health. Through previous collaborations, both institutions have identified a lot of common interests and have seen the benefits of collaboration. They have strongly felt the need of creating a joint platform for the deepening and expansion of this collaboration.
After the signing ceremony, faculty from Penn joined the IBPCAS researchers and administrators for a symposium on neuroimaging to highlight the range of problems and methods represented by the IBPCAS-Penn Center of Excellence in Brain Mapping, including cognitive and systems neuroscience, computational anatomy and physiology, and clinical and translational neurosciences.
