On October 20, 2015, Professor Arnie Purushotham, Director of Health Alliance Cancer Center and Vice-Dean of the Medical Faculty at King's College London, and Professor Farzin Farzaneh of Molecular Medical School at the same university visited the research lab of Professor Pingchou Han of Peking University College of Engineering.

Professor Kaifeng Xu, deputy director of the Respiratory Unit of Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) and representatives of Professor Menghua Dai’s team of Pancreatic Surgery of PUMCH also joined the meeting.

The parties had an in-depth exchange and discussion on early diagnosis of cancer in the future, as well as cooperation in the field of rare diseases in the respiratory system.

Professor Han first introduced his group’s research progress in the field of microfluidic chip, especially the applications of the microfluidic chip in detecting trace cells, such as blood circulating tumor cells (CTC) of liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, bladder cancer, lymphatic muscle and other diseases.

Professor Farzin Farzaneh then introduced the basis research of cancer at King's College London Molecular Medical School, which is world leading.

The two sides fully exchanged views about the future potential of cooperation and reached a preliminary consensus on exchange student visits.

The delegation then visited Professor Han’s microfluidic laboratory, and watched demonstration of a whole microfluidic sorting process of CTC of blood from patients with pancreatic cancer.  They said the technology should have high medical biology research value and practical clinical application potential.

Further reading:
King's College London, ranked the world's top 20 (source: 2015 QS World University rankings), enjoys global leadership in life sciences, health, medical research and education. It is Europe's largest education center for medical professionals, owning colleges of health, biomedical sciences, nursing, dentistry, psychiatry. Currently, the college is carrying out multiple collaborative medical research projects in China, relating to many fields such as neural science, mental health, environmental pollution and air quality research, cardiovascular health, pharmaceutical sciences.

From the left: Farzin Farzaneh, Arnie Purushotham, Pingchou Han and Kaifeng Xu

Visit to Prof. Han’s laboratory