On the morning of February 22, our Chief Scientist Professor Wang Jianxun and Deputy Head of R&D Sun Rui visited the research group of Professor Cao Zhiwei in the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the School of Life Sciences, Fudan University. Professor Cao Zhiwei and team members extended a warm welcome and held a seminar to share recent results and discuss collaboration.

During the seminar, Professor Cao Zhiwei's team shared recent results from a collaborative project with Professor Wang Jianxun, including the screening of cross-protective antibodies from wild-type and variant strains of Omicron, successfully predicting potent epitopes, and presented their group's latest research progress in computational biology. Professor Wang Jianxun provided a detailed introduction to Shenzhen Cell Valley's existing R&D and production pipelines, noting that deep university-enterprise collaboration with Professor Cao's team holds creative significance for optimizing existing CARs. The establishment of methodologies in computational biology can not only inform the direction of future scientific research but also be applied to clinical practice and serve clinical needs. Both teams expressed their commitment to taking this exchange visit as a new opportunity to strengthen university-enterprise collaboration and synergistic cooperation.

To address the challenges facing China's cell and gene therapy industry—particularly the lack of translational support for early-stage R&D by pharmaceutical companies and research institutes—Shenzhen Cell Valley has leveraged its strong research capabilities to enhance its CRO service layout. Starting this year, the company offers one-stop CRO services to clients, covering viral vector design, vector production, engineered cell manufacturing, and preclinical in vitro and in vivo efficacy validation experiments. Additionally, Shenzhen Cell Valley provides CDMO services, clinical research services, and IND filing services, offering professional and comprehensive full-process support for the translation of scientific research achievements by scientist teams.

Professor Cao Zhiwei's research group focuses on computational models for antibody design and multi-component synergistic drug use. The group has established an antigen epitope prediction–immune cross-reactivity computation–antibody virtual screening platform and pioneered a "compound–traditional Chinese medicine–component–metabolism–target" data-sharing resource. They have developed molecular target discovery and multi-component synergistic efficacy prediction models, achieving automatic interpretation of the mechanisms of action of traditional Chinese medicines. Professor Cao has led over ten projects funded by the National Key R&D Program, Precision Medicine Initiative, 973 Program, 863 Program, Major Projects on Infectious Diseases, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Shanghai municipal projects. He has published over 120 SCI papers in journals including Nature, Nucleic Acids Research, Nature Communications, and Molecular Biology & Evolution.