Professor Jian Yang from the University of Saskatchewan Visited SCUT
 
time: 2017-10-20

Professor Jian Yang from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada visited the School of Food Science and Engineering at the South China University of Technology from October 8th to 13th, 2017.During his visit, Professor Yang delivered our graduate students a couple of lectures on the biological functions of carbohydrates and the development of carbohydrate-based nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products. He also exchanged teaching and research experiences with faculty members in our School and had a dialogue with the graduate students on developing professional careers overseas.

On October 11th 2017, Professor Jian Yang presented a seminar entitled “Medicinal plants with anticancer activities” in our School.With his expertise in both basic and clinical medicines, Professor Yang talked about the potential causes of cancer, the functional roles carbohydrates play during cancer growth and metastasis, current cancer treatment options, and the advantage and disadvantage associated with each treatment option. In addition, he discussed the possibility of treating cancer using traditional Chinese medicine and presented his research work for the past ten years on evaluating the anticancer activities of medicinal plants against human breast cancer.Specifically, Professor Yang presented the importance to intensify internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine and promoted the idea of expanding research of traditional Chinese medicine using international standards, especially those for product quality control, that are widely accepted by Western developed countries.Our faculty members and graduate students extensively exchanged opinions with Professor Yang on how to improve the internationalization of Chinese functional foods, nutraceutical products, and pharmaceutical products.Professor Yang is highly impressed by the high quality of our teaching and research programs and the strong capability of our graduate students. He is willing to establish a long-term research collaboration with our School, provide long-distance graduate teaching in English via Skype, and provide financial support for 2-3 qualified undergraduate and graduate students from our School who are planning to pursue graduate studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

Professor Jian Yang’s visit of SCUT provides our School an excellent opportunity to establish communications and partnerships with Canadian universities, bring in valuable overseas teaching and research expertise, and promote the exposure of our research results on the international stage.