BY-HEALTH Visits Strategic Partner Rowett Institute 

Seeking In-Depth Cooperation in Nutrition Research

2016- 06-21

Liang Shuisheng, Vice President of BY-HEALTH, and Dr. Zhang Xuguang, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Centre of BY-HEALTH, paid a return visit recently to the University of Aberdeen. The two sides discussed the potential cooperation fields including nutritional health and medical research as well as the local functional plant resources in the UK, and established a co-research subject and doctoral programme between BY-HEALTH and the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health (Rowett).

From left to right, Liang Shuisheng, Vice President of BY-HEALTH, Prof. Peter Morgan, Director of Rowett Institute, Dr. Baukje De Roos, Deputy Director of Rowett Institute, Dr. Zhang Xuguang, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Centre of BY-HEALTH

In December 2015, Rowett visited BY-HEALTH and signed a global strategic cooperation agreement. The two sides formally established a ‘Strategic Cooperative Partnership for Innovation’, and planned to cooperate in a number of areas around healthcare industry, such as R&D of innovative products, new health claim, personalized nutrition-related technology and product .

For promoting good cooperation, BY-HEALTH visited the University of Aberdeen and met with following professors respectively. Prof. John Paterson, Vice-Chancellor of International Cooperation at the University of Aberdeen, Prof. Steven Heys, Dean of the School of Life Sciences and Medicine, Prof. Peter Morgan, Director of the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, Dr. Baukje De Roos, Deputy Director of the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, Prof. Derek Stewart, Director of the James Hutton Institute.

From left to right, Liang Shuisheng, Vice President of BY-HEALTH, John Paterson, Vice-Principal for Internationalisation at the University of Aberdeen, Dr. Zhang Xuguang, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Centre of BY-HEALTH

During the visit, the representatives from the University of Aberdeen showed BY-HEALTH around the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, which is one of the largest medical teaching and researching campus in Europe and also the largest institution on nutrition and health in UK. Rowett shared the latest research in nutritional as well as subjects available for commercialization, including personalized nutrition, new bio-markers of nutritional health, new functionality of animal/vegetable protein and proteomics, metabolic health and cardiovascular health, business research on weight-control, and the commercialization possibilities of related technologies.

Visiting new research building of the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health

As a strategic R&D partner, BY-HEALTH established a three-year co-research subject and doctoral programme with Rowett during the visit. Based on the model of diabetes patients, this programme will help BY-HEALTH to confirm the effectiveness of new plant active substances and conduct related product development through research activities including animal experiments and human trials; the programme will also provide a prospective analysis to comparison the effect of the same nutrition intervention between people with different genotypes and different intestinal microbial population distribution and establish relevant data model to provide strong technical guidance and theoretical support for BY-HEALTH’s ongoing R&D activities such as personalized nutrition and precise nutrition. In addition, BY-HEALTH also has further explored the possibility of an in-depth cooperation in the field of precision nutrition technologies with the School of Medicine and Rowett.

One of the oldest king colleges in the UK, King's College, the University of Aberdeen

To improve its scientific research level, and develop nutrition products with higher quality, BY-HEALTH has been active to form close cooperation with professional institutions in the industry as well as institutes of higher education. Recently, as the sole enterprise partner, BY-HEALTH, together with the University of Aberdeen (UK), University College Dublin (Ireland), Institute of Cardiometabolism And Nutrition (ICAN, France), and Wageningen University (Holland), has launched a joint application for European precision nutrition research fund, and has gained the first round of approval. The University of Aberdeen also expressed its willingness to jointly apply with By-Health for several other science fund programmes in Europe and China on the basis of strategic partners.

The University of Aberdeen is a famous university worldwide with over 520 years of history that has established the first medical school in English-speaking countries. Scientists of the school even achieved five Nobel Prizes, including those for the synthesis of human insulin and the invention of the MRI instrument. The Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health created in 1913 by the university is one of the four nutrition institutes in Europe, and is considered as the two largest comprehensive nutritional health institutes in the UK together with the Cambridge Institute of Public Health. Through the cooperation with world-leading institutions including Rowett, BY-HEALTH has laid a solid foundation for taking the lead in product R&D as well as core technologies among industry peers domestically and even internationally in the future.