Jiangnan University, Wuxi
Jiangnan University (JU) is one of China's key universities of the "211 Project"* and functions under the Ministry of Education. Curricula cover engineering, science, literature, economics management, law, agriculture, and education. The number of students is around 20.000. The university host the National Engineering Laboratory of Fermentation Technology, the Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, the Engineering Research Center of Bioactive Product Processing (Jiangsu Province) and the Collection of Industrial Microbes Resources for Chinese Universities and thus is an important Center of Excellence in biotechnology both for China and Jiangsu Province.
Jiangnan University Campus
© Jiangnan University
President of JU is Professor Jian CHEN, who is also from JU’s School of Biotechnology.
The School of Biotechnology has long roots in the history of the predecessor organizations of JU. In 2000, the present school was founded which presently has 25 professors and 35 associate professors, and releases more than each 200 bachelor and master students and about 40 Ph. D. professionals per year. The School of Biotechnology hosts five research centers:
- Brewing Science and Enzyme Technology (directed towards beer brewing, wine and distilled products production)
- Biodesign and Bioprocess Engineering (focused on the optimization of fermentation, control and isolation of fermentation products,
- Microbial Manufacture and Industrial Ecology, directed at the upscaling of ecologically benign processes and technology transfer to industry (e.g.: D-panthothenic acid, now produced at Zhejiang Xinfu Pharmaceutical Co.,
- Bioresources and Bioenergy, mainly directed towards bioethanol production, and
- Industrial Microbiology and Bioreaction Engineering, involved in pathway engineering for bioproducts, e. g., 1,3-propane-diol, amino acids, enzymes, pigments and a wide range of other industrially useful biochemicals.
The Collection of industrial microorganisms at JU is given with 4750 bacterial strains, 960 yeast strains and ~ 3800 filamentous fungal strains.
On a visit to JU in April 2010, representatives of the school emphasized their interest to cooperate with companies and universities in Jiangsu’s partner province Baden-Württemberg and to consider working visit of students from Baden-Württemberg universities and universities of applied sciences.
from left to right: Mr Yu WANG, representative of Jiangsu Center for International Technology Transfer; Professor Guocheng Du, Dean of School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University; Prof Rolf SCHMID, MWK; Dr Peter NICKEL BioPro; Dr Helge ULMER, Nestlé Shanghai; Professor Qi Li, Vice-Dean of School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University; Dr Juan Zhang, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University; Dr Jingwen Zhou, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University.
*Project 211: A project of the Ministry of Education, started in 1995, to fund 100 universities (about 3 % of all 3000 Chinese universities) at a level which will allow them to reach competitiveness to international key universities in the 21st century.