China has a lot to offer in life sciences: Bruce Stillman

China is becoming part of the international science community as a great model for the world, Bruce Stillman, CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), said on Monday.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a world leading institution based in the United States focuses on bio-medical research with eight researchers from the lab being Noble Prize laureates, including James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA in 1953.

Stillman said CSHL is in final stages of discussions with Guangzhou government about launching an academic institute modeled on CSHL, the first one outside US, to help bring culture of scientific entrepreneurship to China and link science with opportunities for business development.

In August, Guangzhou government signed a memorandum of cooperation with the CSHL. The agreement involved the construction of the Cold Spring Harbor (Guangzhou) Research Institution, a commercialization center for leading scientific and technological achievements and the Cold Spring Harbor (Guangzhou) Biological Medicine Fund.

Stillman said China has a lot to offer—good education system, smart people and great universities.

"We see a good opportunity for young people to develop their careers in China, be offered positions when they are young," Stillman said on the company's cooperation with Guangzhou.

"CSHL are good at nurturing young scientists' careers, hiring people graduating from schools for projects. We believe in the power of the young people," he said.

Cold Springs Harbor has 52 laboratories and over 600 scientists. Most of them are in their early 30s, according to Stillman.

While life sciences are well developed in US and Europe, Stillman thinks there's a big push toward new technologies and scientific capability improvement in China under China's focus on innovation development.

"US has a dynamic culture of scientific entrepreneurship that is hard to export," Stillman said. "But China has a new momentum to learn it in a fast pace."

Yet, he pointed out an issue in academic field in China that there's an incentive mechanism for scientists getting paid more if their work gets paid in major journals as well as a measure to assess an institute.

"We should be very cautious about it as good science will be recognized no matter where it gets published," he said.

"As scientists, real importance is the breakthroughs in science. We don't do science for prizes."

Besides scientific work, CSHL has its education programs in China including DNA learning centers in Suzhou and cooperation with Beijing 161 High School.

In the teaching program with Beijing 161 High School, for instance, the students can go to New York to take classes in the CSHL to learn more about science first hand.

"The goal is not producing scientists," Stillman said. "The goal is educating everyone about how genetics and biology can impact your life; inspire teenagers to get involved in the career."