About this Event

As nations and states lift their shelter-in-place orders gradually, testing and monitoring COVID-19 infection remains important for safeguarding the public health. In addition to viral tests, antibody tests are also important to understand past infection and to guide control measures. Massive PCR tests have been conducted in the millions in China. How do we interpret those results and what are the implications for other countries? What are the different options of viral tests and antibody tests available on the market and under development? What are the advantages and disadvantages of various testing technologies? What are the barriers when developing and implementing these tests?

The Chinese American Biopharmaceutical Society (CABS) and the Gracious Life Foundation (GLF) invite you to a webinar on Saturday, June 20, 2020 from 2:00-4:30pm PT that will focus on the technologies, potential, and challenges of COVID-19 diagnostics. Invited panelists include industry leaders from Bio-techne, BGI Group, Twist Bioscience, as well as academic researchers from University of Texas and Johns Hopkins University. Presentations and panel discussions will focus on existing and innovative tests, including high throughput PCR testing, antibody testing and point-of-care testing capabilities, and their potentials on achieving widespread availability of rapid, efficient COVID-19 diagnostics.

随着各个国家和各个州逐渐取消就地庇护令，测试和监测COVID-19感染对于维护公众健康就显得尤为重要。除病毒测试外，抗体测试对于了解过去已被感染的人群并指导控制措施也很重要。中国对数以百万计的人群进行了大规模的PCR测试。我们如何解释这些结果以及它对其他国家的影响？市场上和研发中的病毒测试和抗体测试有哪些不同的选择？各种测试技术的优缺点是什么？开发和实施这些测试的障碍是什么？

北美华人生物医药协会（CABS）和Gracious Life Foundation（GLF）邀请您参加6月20日（星期六）下午2：00-4：30 pm （太平洋时间）的网络讲座，重点探讨COVID-19诊断过程中所应用的技术，它们的潜力和遇到的挑战。特邀嘉宾包括来自BGI Group，Bio-techne，Twist Bioscience的行业领袖以及得克萨斯大学和约翰·霍普金斯大学的研究人员。演讲和小组讨论将集中在现有的测试和创新的测试上，包括高通量PCR测试，抗体测试和即时检验功能，以及它们在实现快速，高效COVID-19诊断广泛普及方面的潜力。

时间：

美西太平洋时间: 2020年6月20日，周六下午2:00-4:30 PM PST；

北京时间2020年6月21日，周日早上5:00-7:30 AM

地点：Zoom在线活动。请扫描下图的二维码或点击阅读原文注册登记。Zoom会议链接将在活动开始前发送至注册的邮箱地址。

Quan-Zhen Li, MD, PhD

Associate professor of Department of Immunology and Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

Dr. Li obtained his Medical Doctor’s degree from the Third Military Medical University in 1984 and PhD degree from Sun Yet-Sun University in 1993. He had his post-doctoral training in Depart of Pathology, University of Florida (1999-2001) and Department of Immunology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) (2001-2004). Dr. Li joined the faculty of UTSW in 2004 and now is an Associate professor of Department of Immunology and Internal Medicine of UTSW. He served as the co-director of the Microarray and Genomics Core facility in UTSW since 2004. His main research focuses are the genetics and molecular mechanisms on autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases. He has published over 100 peer reviewed research articles and reviews.

Brendan Yee, Ph.D

Director, Immunoassay, Bio-Techne

Experienced biotechnology leader with over 30 years of experience directing product development and commercialization efforts to support genomic, proteomic, and cellular research in the life science and clinical markets. Prior to directing Bio-Techne’s efforts for their various immunoassay platforms, Brendan directed the development and commercialization of several familiar research platforms at Affymetrix, Beckman Coulter, and Bio-Rad Laboratories Brendan will discuss the automated immunoassay platform offered by Bio-Techne that is actively supporting COVID-19 research for patients that are affected by Cytokine Storm.

Emily Leproust, Ph.D.

CEO and co-founder, Twist Bioscience

As an early pioneer in the high-throughput synthesis and sequencing of DNA, Dr. Leproust is disrupting the process of gene synthesis to enable the exponential growth of synthetic biology applications in multiple fields including medicine, DNA data storage, agricultural biology, and industrial chemicals. In 2015, she was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers for fast-tracking the building blocks of life, and Fast Company named her one of the most creative people in business for synthesizing DNA faster than ever. Prior to Twist Bioscience, she held escalating positions at Agilent Technologies where she architected the successful SureSelect product line that lowered the cost of sequencing and elucidated mechanisms responsible for dozens of Mendelian diseases. She also developed the Oligo Library Synthesis technology, where she initiated and led product and business development activities for the team. Dr. Leproust designed and developed multiple commercial synthesis platforms to streamline microarray manufacturing and fabrication. Prior to Agilent, she worked with Dr. X. Gao at the University of Houston developing DNA and RNA parallel synthesis processes on solid support, a project developed commercially by Xeotron Corporation. Dr. Leproust has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers—many on applications of synthetic DNA, and is the author of numerous patents. She earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Houston and her M.Sc. in industrial chemistry from the Lyon School of Industrial Chemistry in France.

Yongwei Zhang, Ph.D.

BGI Group VP & CEO of Americas

Yongwei serves as Group VP of BGI-Shenzhen (华大集团副总裁), one of world’s largest genomics service companies. He is also CEO of BGI Americas Region and leads BGI’s COVID-19 related businesses in Americas. Dr. Zhang has over 20 years of experience in optics-based instruments and systems. Prior to BGI, he worked in various high tech startups in Bay Area including one he co-founded. Dr. Zhang received his B. Eng in Precision Instruments and B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, M.S. in Computer Sciences, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.

Liben Chen, Ph.D.

Associate Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Liben Chen is an Associate Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Chen received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Huazhong Agricultural University in 2005 and obtained his Ph.D. degree from China Agricultural University in 2010. Prior to Johns Hopkins University, he worked at the Beijing Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, where his primary work was to develop rapid diagnostic tools for animal infectious diseases. In 2015, Dr. Chen joined the research faculty of Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, where his research focuses on developing technology platforms for fast diagnosis of bacterial and viral infections.

Special Thanks to Zoom Video Communications and Beijing Well-being Foundation for technical support.

Laurence Ales

Associate Professor of Economics, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University

Laurence Ales is an Associate Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.  His research focuses on the study of inequality and the design of tax policy. Recent work has analyzed how to tax the labor income of highly paid CEOs and how the income tax schedule should change over time due to polarizing technical change. Current projects study the impact that future disruptive technologies will have on labor markets and determine the best response of policy makers in the form of tax subsidies and migration assistance. Ales joined Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. Before joining Carnegie Mellon, Ales completed his PhD in economics at the University of Minnesota and attended the University of Rome, Tor Vergata, where he received his bachelor’s degree in Physics.