First of all, Weiping thanked Randy for accepting the meeting invitation from his busy schedule. Randy just returned from Shanghai last week where he attended the 5th World Laureates Association Meeting and the 1st WLA Prize Ceremony.
After Weiping gave Randy best regards on behalf of the leaders and members of Hailiang Group, especially those from Hailiang Bio, Randy asked for an update on the progress. Weiping reported the current status of the three business segments of Hailiang Group and detailed the progress of Hailiang Bio.
The Schekman Lab at UC Berkeley studies membrane assembly, vesicular transport, and membrane fusion among organelles of the secretory pathway. Recognized for his groundbreaking discovery, Randy received many awards and honors such as the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013, and funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grants. Randy shared his insights into exosomes, such as their uses as tools to diagnose and treat diseases. He pointed out, however, the purity of exosomes is still facing a major challenge and will affect the outcomes of their applications.
In addition to directing his research group at UC Berkeley, Randy took on a new responsibility about five years ago, as the Scientific Director of Align Sciences Across Parkinson’s (ASAP). He updated the latest efforts and new discoveries made by the teams funded by ASAP. For Randy, elucidating molecular mechanisms underlying PD is not only his scientific interest but also a personal one since his beloved wife was diagnosed at the age of 48 and passed away after 20 years' battle with the disease. Weiping thanked Randy for sharing his story on PD, which affects more than 10 million people worldwide, including Weipng’s family members.
Randy also shared his passion on scientific publishing and its impact on various aspects of our society such as how to judge the quality of research papers and their authors. As a leader of scientific publishing, Randy once served as Editor-in-Chief of three separated journals, Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and eLife, the last of which is an open access journal, sponsored by the HHMI, Wellcome Trust and the Max Planck Society, and Randy was the founding Editor-in-Chief. Moving forward, Randy and Weiping discussed what China would need to have its own journals of outstanding quality.
Finally, Weiping asked Randy for his guidance on how Hailiang Bio can move forward successfully. While expressing reservation on stem cell therapy on autism, Randy highly recommended that Hailiang Bio consider neurodegenerative diseases such as PD.
The two full hours flew by quickly. Weiping thanked Randy for sharing his expertise on so many topics and invited him to visit Hailiang Group in Hangzhou next year. Randy gladly accepted the invitation and looked forward to seeing new progress from Hailiang Group and Hailiang Bio.