An opening ceremony for establishment of Thomas Beijing Institutealong with a Preparatory Meeting of Spinal Cord Injury and Clinical Trialswere held in Beijingon February 3rd 2017. The institute was named after Professor Thomas C. Südhof, the winner of the 2013Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, fellow of US National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the National School of Medicine and fellow of the American College of Liberal Arts. The institute aims at using innovative biological materials and technology to mobilize endogenous stem cells for spinal cord injury repair, completion of clinical trialsand technology transfer through connecting international first-class clinical experts in spinal cord injury and building an international clinical trial platform for spinal cord injury repairs.

At the meeting, the institute announced "Beijing Spinal Cord Injury" program which had signed seven leading scientists,among whom two were Tongji professors: Prof.CHENG LimingandProf.SUN Yi. CHENG will be responsible for clinical transformation of the program and SUNwill dofurtherfundamental researchon pre-clinical mechanism.