The Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Science Library, CAS (NSLC) held a strategic cooperation signing ceremony at the 1^st Global Health Forum (GHF) of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) on June 11^th. Under the agreement, QIBEBT and NSLC will cooperate on the “Joint Laboratory for Microbiome Data Science”.

Human microbiome (microflora) is closely related to human health and diseases. “Data Science” based on big-data mining can evaluate and interfere the relationship between microbiome and health more clearly and accurately, thus serving the great health of microecology. Recently, QIBEBT has self-developed the first Microbiome Search Engine (MSE, http://mse.ac.cn), which can calculate the structural and functional similarity of plethora of microbiomes in the vast universe of microbiome big-data and thus become the compass for traveling in the “universe of microbiome data”. The NSLC possesses a leading talent team and technical platform in diverse fields, such as the construction and computing mining of big-data resources at science and literature, the intelligent construction of knowledge map in professional fields, the construction of intelligent knowledge & service platform, the research of development trend of certain subjects, and etc.

Under this MOU, QIBEBT and NSLC will make joint efforts to build the knowledge & service system for microbiome big-data at “Joint Laboratory for Microbiome Data Science”. The strategic cooperation will evaluate the health risk of each microecosystem comprehensively and systematically with a bird’s eye view, and provide a summarization and prediction for the current status and development trend of microbiome in various science and application, according to the Microbiome Novelty Score (MNS), Microbiome Attention Score (MAS), Microbiome Focus Index (MFI), Microbiome index of Health (MiH), Microbiome index of Disease and Ecological hazard Risk (MiDER), and etc. of microbiome in every corner of the world based on MSE.

Results of this cooperation will be issued annually in the form of “White Paper on Microbiome Focus Index”, in order to improve the focus of the public on the protection of the earth’s microbial circle, and enable the microbiome big-data to play an important role in scientific research, livelihood & service, national security, accurate health, Marine conservation & resource mining, and etc.

On behalf of QIBEBT and NSLC respectively, Mr. FENG Aisheng, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee in QIBEBT, and Ms. ZHANG Dongrong, Assistant Director of NSLC signed this agreement. Mr. LI Baoguo, the Secretary General of BFA, Mr. SUN Jiye, vice governor of Shandong Province, MENG Fanli, the mayor of Qingdao, XUE Qingguo, the vice mayor of Qingdao, and etc. participated in this signing ceremony.

(Image by HE Qingjie)