The Engineering Research Center of Therapeutic Proteins and Peptides was formed at the beginning of 2004, and formally supported by the Ministry of Education in 2006, and finally certified by the Ministry of Education at the end of 2008. The research team of the center is led by senior scientists who had worked for many years in the most prestigious universities and pharmaceutical companies in United States. The center has 8,000 square meters of R&D labs for biopharmaceutical technology, 6,000 square meters of a GMP pilot production platform for recombinant proteins and peptides, and 1,000 square meters of a SPF animal facility for preclinical studies.
The center is able to carry out the entire process of a drug development, from drug discovery to preclinical and clinical development, and from pilot production to industrial manufacture. It has made a number of innovative breakthroughs in key technologies in fermentation, protein/antibody engineering, purification, and formulation. The following five platforms have been installed to develop technologies and innovations for therapeutic proteins and peptides.
Molecular Medicine based Drug Discovery Labs
Genetic Engineering Labs
QA/QC Labs
Preclinical Animal Labs
Drug Formulation Labs
The center fully devotes to find new cures for the most devastating human diseases, focusing on discovery and invention of therapeutic proteins and peptides as well as manufacture technologies. The center has a number of animal models for human diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, tumor and stroke. It has also developed a number of innovative drugs of proteins or peptides with well-protected IPs. The center actively collaborates with the pharmaceutical industry, providing with technical supports and intellectual talents. A novel technology of long-acting therapeutic proteins and peptides is newly advanced by the center, which prolongs the in vivo half-life of a therapeutic protein or peptide from minutes to days or even to weeks. Its innovative technology of oral administration of therapeutic proteins or peptides is remarked as a great breakthrough by the industry, which successfully makes it possible to be taken orally for a number of therapeutic proteins and peptides including antibodies that are currently required for daily injection.
The Engineering Research Center of Water Treatment and Water Environment Restoration was founded on the basis of Yixing Environmentally Friendly Science and Technology Research Center of Nanjing University (currently the Yixing Environmentally Friendly Institute of Nanjing University), which is the first off-campus industry-university-research basis of Nanjing University. The center aims to promote the water treatment industry be more technology-advanced, more equipment-standardized, and more market-sounder. Through system mechanism innovation and technically creative talents gathering, the center strives to establish a system to effectively industrialize the scientific research and focuses on develop imperative common and key technologies, so as to become a domestically leading and internationally first-class engineering research base for water treatment and water environment restoration.
The center is the essential carrier of “One Center One Base” Project of Jiangsu Province. It has founded or led the foundation of a series of advanced platforms including National Engineering Research Center for Organic Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, National Innovation Association of Energy-saving Water Treatment Equipment and Technology, Jiangsu Industry Technology Institute for Water Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Jiangsu Environmentally Friendly Equipment and Industry Technology Innovation Center, etc.
The center is currently staffed with 124 professional research fellows, including one academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, two Cheung Kong Scholar professors, one member of the “Thousand Youth Talents Program”, one member of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Youth Scholar Program”, two Jiangsu Outstanding Young Scientists, two leading experts in the national “863” theme program and national major supporting program. And the current Director of the Center is Professor Ren Hongqiang.
Main tasks of the center are the research and conversion of the common and key technologies in water treatment and water environment restoration, which include the following five aspects:
new technology of water and sewage treatment and resource;
non-point source pollution control and ecological engineering technology;
water resources preservation and restoration technology;
evaluation technology of toxicants and ecological safety; and
policy and standard for water pollution prevention technology.
The center has made the following achievements in the recent five years:
taking change of plenty national “863” and “973” major supporting projects and provincial major science and technology projects;
RMB 27 million Yuan research fund every year;
RMB 40 million Yuan contract research fund;
70 inventions and patents authorized every year;
5 winners of National Technology Invention Awards (second class) and National Science & Technology Progress Awards (second class);
one winner of the Science and Technology Awards of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation; and
15 winners of Provincial Technology Awards (first class and second class).
Currently the center is domestically leading in bio-treatment and cycling of industry sewage, and internationally leading in such aspects of new function materials, new equipment, and risk prediction technology.
The center boasts a stable research place of 6,000 square meters and large-size research equipment and instruments with a total value of about RMB 120 million Yuan. Almost 1,000 testing items in environment, agriculture and food are approved to be carried out by the center by the Provincial Bureau of Quality and Technology Supervision. The center is acclaimed as “Water Hospital” for having provided environmental protection technology service and systematic solutions for more than 200 enterprises at home and abroad.
