I. Profile
Yantai Diabetes Targeted Drug Engineering Technology Research Center was approved for construction by Yantai Municipal Science and Technology Bureau in 2015, and uses fluorescent probes to study the pathogenesis of diabetes and discover potential targets for the treatment of diabetes drugs. It carries out early medical diagnosis and pathological research for diabetes to find new potential targets, especially the in-depth research on β-cells and insulin receptors, and therefore plays an important role in improving the level of clinical therapeutics and pharmacy technology, so as to develop new target therapeutic drugs and new formulations of saccharine. This creates a good prospect for the ultimate physiological control of blood sugar, regeneration and protection of cells, prevention and reduction of the occurrence and development of diabetes and its complications. In 2017, the Center was selected as “Shandong Collaborative Innovation Center for Higher Education Institutions” and the “13th Five-Year Plan” Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Higher Education Institutions. In 2019, it was selected as the “Integrated Campus-City Development Platform Creation Project in Yantai. In 2020, it was approved as “Shandong Province Molecular Targeted Intelligent Diagnosis and Treatment Technology Innovation Center”.
II. The Team
The head of the Center, Professor Tian Geng, is a Young and Middle-aged Expert with Outstanding Contributions in Shandong Province, representative of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Youth League, representative of the 13th Provincial People's Congress, member of the 10th Committee of the Chinese Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Association for Science and Technology, and Vice Chairman of the Provincial Young Scientists Association. The team currently has 26 teachers, including 20 permanent staff, 15 with overseas study experience, and 10 with provincial or higher talent titles. All staff in the center have a graduate degree or above, of which 24 have a doctorate degree. It is an interdisciplinary team in tumor, diabetes, nanomaterials, etc.
III. Academic Achievements
The real-time monitoring of living cell signaling pathway platform established by the center is at the world's leading level in cell membrane biology research. In the past 5 years, the center has been approved for 13 National Natural Science Foundation projects, 15 provincial-level projects such as centrally guided local science and technology development fund projects, major basic projects of Shandong Natural Science Foundation, and key R&D plans of Shandong Province, and received a total of 3,000 scientific research funds. It has published more than 50 high-level papers such as SCI papers, applied for more than 10 national invention patents, 4 of which have been authorized.
IV. Infrastructure
The Center covers an area of 2000 square meters, well-equipped with molecular biology and medical cell research laboratories, such as total internal angle reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscope, fluorescent quantitative PCR instrument, cell culture laboratory, hypoxic cell culture workstation, and coagulation laboratory. Valuable scientific research instruments such as gel image analyzer, ultraviolet spectrophotometer, nucleic acid and protein analyzer, and high-speed refrigerated centrifuge are worth more than RMB 30 million yuan. It has been equipped with basic experimental facilities ranging from molecules to cells and the overall research level. There is also a bioinformatics data analysis workstation.
