Global leader in genome sequencing looking for partners in Catalonia
<p>The Beijing Genomics Institute is meeting with companies and entities in the BioRegion as part of a reverse mission led by Biocat</p>
The Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), considered the largest genome sequencing research center in the world, has visited Catalonia in search of partners in the areas of sports medicine and active aging. A delegation from the Chinese giant has met in Barcelona with representatives from the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS), the National Centre for Genomic Analysis (CNAG-CRG), INDESCAT (the Catalan Sports Cluster) and the medical department of FC Barcelona.
The reverse mission was organized by Biocat following an initial contact made in China during the Catalan institutional mission to the Asian giant last March. On that occasion, Biocat presented the potential of the Catalonia BioRegion to the BGI team and invited them to learn about the Catalan health and life sciences ecosystem first-hand. The Chinese center showed a particular interest in contacting companies and entities involved in sports medicine and active aging, one of the BGI’s working areas.
“We are very grateful to Biocat for organizing these introductory meetings with potential partners in the BioRegion, and we hope to collaborate actively with these companies in the near future”, said BGI European Business Development Manager Tharshany Rajasingham.
“Thanks to the opportunity offered by Biocat, we found that we agreed with BGI on identifying the more immediate challenges of personalized medicine and have built bridges for possible collaborations in the future”, explained David Torrents, Computational Genomics Group Manager at BSC-CNS, one of the participants at the meetings.
The BGI has already expressed an interest in organizing future visits to Catalonia to contact potential partners in other areas of research, such as agrifood.