From September 22 to 25, the First Asian Chapter Meeting of ISBER and Asian Network for Research Resource Center was held in South Korea’s capital city Seoul. IMCAS Executive Deputy Director-General Li Huang, Head of State Key Lab of Microbial Resources Xiuzhu Dong and Information Center Director Juncai Ma attended the event.

More than 200 attendees including 70 lecturers from 12 countries participated in this meeting, which consisted of 5 plenary lectures and 10 sessions. Executive Deputy Director-General Li Huang delivered a plenary lecture on the development of culture collections in China and in Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as the commitment and strategy of IMCAS Microbial Resources Center. Prof. Xiuzhu Dong and Prof. Juncai Ma spoke at the sessions of Joint Seminar China-Korea and Bioinformatics respectively.

Prof. Xiuzhu Dong signed on behalf of IMCAS Microbial Resources Center Memorandum of Understanding for the International Collaboration among Biological Resource Centers in China, Japan, and Korea and For Asian Network of Research Resource Centers (ANRRC) with the RIKEN BioResource Center of Japan and Korea National Research Resource Center. The MOU stressed that the three institutions will exercise their best efforts to encourage and promote cooperation in fields of mutual interests on biological resources. They agreed to set up a system for cooperation among the BRCs/RRCs in China, Japan and Korea, organize “Asian Network of Biological Resource Center (ANBRC)” and arrange a website for Biological resource centers in the three countries.