On Monday, Jan. 22, the UC Davis community will welcome researchers from Taiwan’s Academia Sinica for the first Academia Sinica and UC Davis Bilateral Joint Symposium on the Genome, Glycome and Microbiome of Plants and Animals. The two-day event will showcase the latest, cutting-edge life science research from the two institutions.

“Both Academia Sinica and UC Davis are premier life science research institutions,” said Mark Winey, dean of the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences and a co-chair of the event. “This symposium allows the faculty of each institution to share their latest research results in a variety of exciting and timely areas.”

The event, which begins Monday at 8:45 a.m. and concludes on Tuesday at 6 p.m., is open to the public and free to attend, though prior registration is strongly recommended. Attendance of the entire symposium is not required, and guests are encouraged to attend sessions of interest. The event will be held at the UC Davis Conference Center, located at 550 Alumni Lane, Davis, CA 95616. Opening remarks will be given by UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May and Academia Sinica President James C. Liao.

Register for the Academia Sinica and UC Davis Bilateral Joint Symposium

Sessions will address: glycomics and the microbiome, the plant microbiome and genetics, human disease, and glycomics and cancer, with topics to include soil viral ecology, pancreatic tumor evolution, technologies for plant breeding acceleration, precision medicine and many more.

Hsing-Jien Kung, a distinguished investigator with the Taiwan Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine, National Health Research Institutes, will give the keynote address at an invitation-only dinner. Kung has a long connection to UC Davis, where he served as a distinguished professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine and as director of basic research at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Kung’s talk will focus on cancer as a metabolic disease and its therapeutic implications.    

View the complete program schedule

According to Winey, the symposium will strengthen the existing relationship between UC Davis and Academia Sinica and further opportunities for scientific and educational collaboration between the two institutions.

The event is hosted in partnership with UC Davis Global Affairs, the Office of the Provost and the College of Biological Sciences.