In mid-December, IHB Professors Pin NIE and Yaping WANG paid a one-week academic visit to University of Aberdeen, UK. The visit was conducted under the framework of the joint project “Study of MHC and gamma interferon genotype and disease susceptibility to viral pathogens in farmed fish species”.  

The Chinese principal investigator of the project is Prof. Pin NIE while the coordinator in UK is Prof. Chris Secombes, who is the director of the Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre, the head of School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, the elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), and an editor of “Fish & Shellfish Immunology” being an authoritative journal in the field of fish immunology.  

Profs. Pin NIE and Yaping WANG were warmly welcomed by the confreres in Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre. This academic exchange further promoted mutual understanding of both sides, and in particular by participating in the “School Research Day” activity at University of Aberdeen, they got acquainted with the scientific progress in the cooperative institution and laid the foundation for future cooperation.  

IHB has a relatively good foundation in terms of scientific research cooperation with University of Aberdeen. Academician Zuoyan ZHU once served as the academic staff at the university in the 1990s and was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Science by University of Aberdeen in 2007.  

In recent years, the two parties kept academic exchanges between their scholars and experts. Financed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of UK, Drs. Yong’an ZHANG and Qian GAO once conducted research on fish antibacterial peptide and interferon receptors at University of Aberdeen, respectively. Dr. Jun ZOU, research manager of Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre annually comes to our institute for academic exchange and actively promotes the scientific cooperation between IHB and University of Aberdeen.