Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Avian Disease Research Institute (Director Jang Hyeong-gwan) announced that it hosted a research exchange event for a delegation from the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences of China from September 2 to 4, lasting three days and two nights.

The delegation to Korea was led by O Ga-gang (吳家强), Vice President of the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and comprised six members in total, including Principal Investigators (PIs) from the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Research Institute, the Poultry Research Institute, and the Agricultural Product Processing and Nutrition Research Institute, as well as researchers from the Laboratory Animal Science Institute of Shandong First Medical University. The Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences is a provincial-level leading research institution conducting animal disease research based in Shandong, China’s largest poultry-producing province. It has maintained a collaborative research relationship with the institute since 2021.

As their first program, the delegation toured JBNU’s biosafety level 3 (ABL-3) research facility (JBNU Institute for Zoonotic Infectious Diseases) and reviewed the high-risk pathogen handling systems and the operation status of the vaccine efficacy evaluation infrastructure. They then visited the Avian Disease Research Institute and participated in an exchange program that included introductions to the institution and its research activities, a laboratory tour, and in-depth discussions among researchers.

At the meeting, the two institutions discussed cooperative measures focused on four areas: sharing the current status of animal and poultry disease research; cooperation on technology transfer for existing technologies such as vaccines and diagnostic kits; personnel exchanges through mutual dispatch of researchers; and joint use of research facilities and equipment. In particular, they agreed to mutually share diagnostic and disease-control data accumulated by both countries on transboundary poultry infectious diseases such as avian influenza (AI), infectious bronchitis (IB), and Salmonella, to identify common areas of interest, and to develop these into joint research projects and academic exchanges in the future.

Jang Hyeong-gwan, Director of the JBNU Avian Disease Research Institute, said, "If the institute’s foundational technologies for disease diagnosis and control accumulated over time combine with the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ extensive field resources, we will be able to offer practical solutions to the disease problems that both countries’ poultry industries commonly face. We will develop researcher exchanges and joint use of research facilities into a sustainable cooperative system rather than a one-off meeting."

O Ga-gang, Vice President of the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, responded, "It was a meaningful schedule in which we could directly confirm the research capabilities and biosafety research infrastructure of the JBNU Avian Disease Research Institute. I hope that the technical exchanges in the fields of vaccines and diagnostics will serve as an opportunity to raise the level of animal husbandry disease control in both countries."