Located in the southern district of the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, the Institute for Respiratory Science at Soochow University was formally established in May 2013. The Institute is supported by the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which is home to China’s national key clinical specialist construction programs, Jiangsu Province’s clinical key specialty-respiratory medicine and Clinical medical center of Suzhou. Moreover, the Institute focuses on diseases in the respiratory system. It has established the following six research platforms: Tumor Immunity and Immunotherapy, Cancer Gene Therapy, Genetics and Epigenetics in Lung Cancer, Acute Lung Injury and Pulmonary Hypertension, Pathogenesis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Asthma, and Clinical Application of Interventional Lung Epidemiology. Furthermore, it will efficiently and quickly promote a level of basic research in specialized areas and develop a transformation in achievement for the scientific research of medicine.
The Institute has established cooperative relationships with many famous institutions at home and abroad, including the Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Kentucky, University of Saskatchewan, and Heidelberg University. It also has been given such awards as “China’s Respiratory Physicians Award”, “Outstanding Contribution Award of Chinese Medical Association”, and “National May 1 Labor Medal”, “Provincial Key Medicine” , and “Suzhou’s Leading Talent of Medicine”. In recent years, the Institute has successfully applied for 6 grants of the National Natural Science Fund, 3 provincial projects, and more than 10 city-level projects. The Institute has also received four provincial science and technology achievement awards, including the two awards of the “Chinese Medical Science and Technology” as the first successful Institute. We have published more than 30 papers in SCI, including Chest, International Journal of Cancer, and Cancer Letters. And we also participated in the writing of three experts consensus on diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary diseases.
The Institute will combine multiple disciplines, including pulmonology, immunology, and genetics. Furthermore, it will explore ways to build high-level talents, establish workstations for academicians, the Sino-US technology exchange center of advanced respiratory endoscopy, the accurate treatment of lung cancer and analysis center, and the respiratory intensive treatment center. The aim of the Institute is to build a standardized, international, and open research base of pulmonary diseases.