News & events

Opening of the China-Australia Centre for Personalised Immunology

In June 2015, Professor Carola Vinuesa, Professor Matthew Cook, Dr Di Yu and Dr Ed Bertram visited Shanghai Jiaotong School of Medicine to officially open the Joint Research Centre. Professor Vinuesa and Professor Cook presented a mini-symposium to eighty staff and students that was well received.

Professor Vinuesa and Professor Cook recorded a video of their plans for the joint Centre to present to the Director of Renji Hospital. The visiting Australian delegation were taken on a tour of the large biorepository at Renji Hospital that contains approximately two thousand autoimmune samples and a large space that will become the new Joint Research Centre laboratories. Dr Di Yu from Monash University has led the establishment of the laboratories.

This joint Centre provides the opportunity for China and Australia to collaboratively discover gene variants that cause autoimmune diseases.

Pictured: Professor Nan Shen, Professor Matthew Cook, Professor Carola Vinuesa, Dr Di Yu, Dr Edward Bertram Read more about Opening of the China-Australia Centre for Personalised Immunology

Joint Centre Appoints Two New Junior Investigators

Professor Nan Shen has recently appointed two new investigators, Deng Jun and Qian Yuting, to the China-Australia Centre for Personalised Immunology (CACPI). Professor Shen, is the Director of Shanghai Institute of Rheumatology, Ren Ji Hospital Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. His research mainly focuses on determining the molecular disease pathways in the systemic autoimmune disease, particularly lupus, using a functional genomics approach.

Professor Shen with Professor Vinuesa as co-directors, Dr Di Yu (Head of Molecular Immunomodulation, Monash University) and Professor Matthew Cook have led the establishment of the laboratories at Renji Hospital in Shanghai.

In the photo below is the China-Australia Centre for Personalised Immunology (CACPI) offices, Renji Hospital, Shanghai – Prof Nan Shen, Deng Jun, research assistant, Qian Yuting, Dr Di Yu (L-R)

  Read more about Joint Centre Appoints Two New Junior Investigators

CPI enters into an agreement to establish a joint centre with China

Professor Simon Foote, Director of The John Curtin School of Medical Research and Professor Weiping Li, President of the Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for The Centre of Personalised Immunology and Shanghai Institute of Rheumatology, to facilitate cooperation towards the establishment of a Joint Research Centre for Personalised Immunology.  Based on principles of equity and reciprocity, this MoU will serve as a framework for cooperation between the two members of the joint research centre. CPI Director Professor Carola Vinuesa and Professor Nan Shen, Director of Shanghai Institute of Rheumatology will work together to progress the establishment of the joint centre.

"Bringing large patient cohorts together from different continents is essential for the discovery and validation of gene variants causing rare or complex diseases; those damaging variants are otherwise found at very low frequencies in the general population", said Professor Vinuesa. Read more about CPI enters into an agreement to establish a joint centre with China

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