Highlighting the Importance of Collaboration: Peking University Day at Yale

Martha Dale, Director of China Programs, GHLI

In her welcoming comments to guests from China on Yale’s Peking University Day, Elizabeth H. Bradley, PhD, faculty director of the Yale Global Health Leadership Institute, explained GHLI’s goal to convene experts from diverse specialties to address health care delivery problems around the world. She relayed GHLI's university partnerships in China with the 10,000 Women Program and how this modeled a successful partnership to address improvement in health care delivery in China and stressed that partnerships such as these are essential to the mission of Yale.

It was with the goal of further collaboration and knowledge exchange that Dr. Bradley moderated a roundtable discussion attended by several Yale and PKU faculty in attempt to identify areas of possible collaboration. Several Yale faculty noted current collaborations with China partners.  Richard Lifton, MD, PhD, Chair, Department of Genetics, provided examples of multidisciplinary research endeavors between university research partners around the world to develop novel therapeutics for patients suffering from metabolic diseases and cancers.  He and other Yale faculty addressed research of particular interest to the visitors including work on diabetes which affects more than 120 million Chinese people.  Nancy Reynolds, RN, PhD, C-NP, Professor of Nursing and Robert Sherwin, MD, head of the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, offered insights on creating institutional infrastructure and promoting interdisciplinary research programs in health and health care delivery.

PKU delegates, Yin Yuxin, PhD, Dean of Peking University Health Science Center School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fang Weigang, MD, PhD, Vice President of PUHSC for Research and International Cooperation, and Wang Shan, MD, President of PKU Second Hospital provided an overview of new hospital developments in Peking, including Peking University International Hospital that will open next year. He also spoke on China’s steady rise in medical science, demonstrated by significant health care accomplishments and the increasing number of Chinese scientific papers cited by major journals.    Dr. Fang noted  many of the research topics on which PKU medical center currently focuses – such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer -- are well-matched with Yale’s research priorities.  The visitors noted China’s goal of developing world-class medical scholarship akin to Western universities such as Yale.