Bio2000 – An Endeavor to Improve Graduate Education in China

We believe in teaching is a significant and fundamental element to improving bioscience in China.

Bio2000, now starting its seventh year, is a graduate course jointly organized by the CBI Society and the graduate schools of the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences (SIBS, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Tsinghua University and Peking University. It is a full-year course for first-year graduate students at the three institutions, with the fall semester focusing on aspects of molecular biology and the spring semester covering topics in cell biology.

The course began in 2000 at SIBS and was the brainchild of long-time society member Yi Rao, now a professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine, and SIBS professor Jiarui Wu. The main purpose was to bring world-class education to China, where many lecturers, including those in top universities, continue to teach by more or less reciting textbooks. It instantly became (arguably) the most popular and best known graduate course in China, leading to a featured news article in Nature in 2002 (Nature 417:683). Because of the popularity, Min Li, vice President of the CBI Society and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who took over the organization duty from Yi Rao in the fourth year, also helped to expand the course to Tsinghua and Peking University.

Most Bio2000 lectures are given by overseas Chinese professors, including many society members. Judging from the feedback from the students over the years, the popularity of the course stems largely from the fact that it not only brings basic and cutting-edge scientific knowledge to students but also introduces them to critical thinking – namely, how a scientific discovery was made and a concept was developed, as well as the importance of developing the ability to critically evaluate scientific papers, even those published in the most fashionable journals. Each lecturer spends a week covering one topic, which is given in two lectures that are repeated in Shanghai and Beijing, and the course enrolls well over two hundred students at each place. Although physically exhausting, the past lecturers have also found the experience rewarding, particularly the thoughtful questions asked by many motivated students.

Currently, society board member Weimin Zhong from Yale University is organizing the course together with SIBS professor Kan Liao. We particularly welcome suggestions to improve the course (weimin.zhong@yale.edu) and anticipate having more society members lecture in this exciting course.

Spring 2007, Bio2000 Syllabus