Can life adapt to environments more extreme than the fourth pole?

Can we map all types of rice germplasm resources worldwide?

Can carbon-based life be counted in one table like the periodic table of elements, and can biological intelligence be explored?

As an organisation with profound accumulation in the field of genomics, BGI Group and BGI College are leading scientists, industries, and talents to the peak in the life science field. As an emerging field, life science data and research intelligence still require a large number of highly educated professionals, and BGI College has explored a unique way to acquire these talents.

Cultivating Interdisciplinary Capabilities Based on Big Science Problems

Starting from the fundamental questions and needs of life sciences, BGI Group sets up interdisciplinary and cross-field in-depth research teams to promote collaborative research. At the same time, BGI attaches great importance to the independent construction of basic research instruments and equipment and other underlying tools and organises large-scale teams to make focused breakthroughs and efficiently achieve high-quality research results. In terms of talent cultivation mode, BGI supports selected undergraduates to participate in high-level scientific research at an early stage and achieve high-level scientific research results.

BGI Group is headquartered in Yantian District, Shenzhen. In Southern China, especially in Guangdong and the Greater Bay Area, there are around 30 million people who carry the thalassemia gene. In the documentary film ‘China Next, the Bridge to New Horizons[1][2], Lewis Lusuwi, a BGI Group engineer from Zimbabwe, shared that while thalassemia is difficult to treat, it can be prevented and controlled. Through genetic testing technology, thalassemia can be prevented at the source. Through nearly 20 years of efforts in talent, scientific research accumulation and industrial accumulation, BGI Genomics, a subsidiary of BGI Group, has been able to tackle the automated detection of thalassemia through underlying innovations and has now completed thalassemia genetic testing for more than 1.74 million people. 

The work behind this could not be done without a highly educated team with both precision medicine and smart manufacturing capabilities. Relying on this vision, the BGI Group and BGI College have formed an innovative talent training model in line with the development of genomic science, and continuously deliver top-notch talents who bridge scientific research and industrial transformation. Since 2009, BGI College has started the mode of joint undergraduate training with universities. Through more than ten years of efforts, BGI College has established a "3+1+X" integrated talent system, bridging undergraduate, master's, and doctoral education with over 60 universities in China. This system introduces students who have completed three years of undergraduate studies to the forefront laboratories of genomic research and cultivates high-level innovative talents in the process of scientific innovation. It also enables students to acquire the ability to master cutting-edge science in industrial resources and research paradigms, and continuously expand the team for frontier research in life sciences.

Jin Xin, a representative of the inaugural class of the Innovation Class of South China University of Technology, greatly benefited from the program. In 2014, at the age of 27, he achieved "triumph" by publishing in all three top-tier journals of CNS (Cell, Nature, and Science). He pointed out that although traditional university education has a comprehensive system for learning, it in way constrains the flexibility for cross-disciplinary study. Particularly in the rapidly developing emerging fields like bioinformatics, university teaching sometimes struggles to keep up with the pace of technological iteration. In contrast, BGI College, with its unique advantage of "deep integration of industry, research and education", not only has a strong fundamental research team, but also has established an efficient transformation chain from research to application. This model enables the latest research results to be quickly integrated into teaching practice, allowing students to access and master cutting-edge technologies in the industry at the earliest possible time.

Xu Xun, Chief Scientist of BGI Group, said, "BGI's strength is not to do pure business, but to construct a complete and stable ecosystem. From the perspective of constructing an entire ecosystem, our vision is that whichever pillar is missing in the system, we will fill it." From the perspective of industry development, genetic disease research is unsustainable without the accumulation of a large range of samples and the support of a large number of talents.[3]

Competency-based Certifications for the Job Position

BGI College adopts project-driven teaching in the training of talents from universities and research institutes, embedding real industry and research topics, and regularly updating teaching cases to ensure that the course content is in sync with the cutting edge of the industry. Taking industrial employment needs as a guide, certificate courses for positions in the upstream, midstream and downstream of the gene technology industry, such as genetic sequencing engineers, bio-intelligent computing engineers, genetic data analysts and genetic counsellors, have been set up. Students or learners who wish to upgrade their skills will be able to obtain a certification issued by BGI College after passing the assessment, thus enhancing their competitiveness in employment. Entering the era of artificial intelligence, BGI College has further joined hands with the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and other organisations to set up cross-disciplinary directions such as 'Artificial Intelligence + Life Science' and 'Artificial Intelligence + Agriculture', and strive to crack the bottleneck of talent cultivation between industry and higher education to cultivate composite innovative talents for the future technological breakthroughs. BGI College is striving to break the bottleneck between industry and higher education in talent cultivation, and to cultivate composite innovative talents for future technological breakthroughs.        

Although BGI College is not an educational institution in the traditional sense, it has opened up an innovative path in the field of talent cultivation with its global cutting-edge technology strength. BGI transforms the concept of project-based learning into a solid practice in the education field, honing students' ability to solve practical problems.

This innovation is reflected in multiple dimensions: in terms of training mechanism, BGI collaborates with institutions in the Greater Bay Area and around the world to implement a "dual mentorship system", whereby institutional mentors ensure academic standards and corporate mentors lead cutting-edge innovation and practice. More than 50 per cent of the students participating in the joint training programme choose to pursue a doctoral degree; more than 30 per cent of them stay at the BGI after graduation for further studies or employment, and at the same time, they also send high-quality talents to their own industries and fields. In terms of international collaboration, taking Serbia as an example, the BGI-Research Serbia Team has not only expanded its research team and strength, but also built a strong beam for the exchange of Chinese and Serbian students since the launch of the Stereo-seq technology research in 2022. As of 2024, BGI College has established educational cooperation with 17 universities in 11 countries and regions, including Denmark, Poland, Thailand, and Serbia, and has trained a total of 232 undergraduate and graduate students from overseas. Under the two-way path of "bringing in" and "going out", BGI College has built an extensive global talent network. This kind of transnational cooperation breaks the traditional boundaries of institutions and disciplinary barriers and makes "teaching" and "learning" more globally resilient and open. This model not only meets the needs of industrial development, but also provides a useful reference for talent cultivation in higher education. [4]

According to Maryame Lamsisi from the Pasteur Institute of Morocco, this training experience not only established a solid foundation in genomic technologies and advanced experimental techniques, but also equipped her with systematic thinking in disease surveillance and prevention. "From analyzing complex data to formulating public health strategies, this learning experience has provided me with the professional capabilities to address future health challenges," she stated. Abdelrahman Amir from Alexandria University in Egypt was deeply impressed by BGI's spirit of knowledge sharing. "Here, I witnessed how research institutions transmit the wisdom accumulated over many years," he remarked. What he particularly treasures is the practical knowledge of perennial rice and sand-to-soil transformation technologies, which he will take back to Egypt and may bring new possibilities for sustainable agricultural development in the Middle East and Africa.

Facing the era of artificial intelligence, BGI College is playing a more active role in the industry and exerting cutting-edge influence, collaborating with institutions such as the School of Artificial Intelligence of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and exploring the trends and possibilities of AI+BT (Artificial Intelligence plus Biotechnology), contributing its wisdom and strength to the cause of life and health. This exploration is being extended to a broader international arena. In collaboration with the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO, BGI College will launch micro-certificate programmes in AI+BT, AI+Agriculture and other areas on the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) Open Digital Learning Platform, to support universities, educators and students in the Global South to master cutting-edge developments in the life sciences. Through the international cooperation model of "joint construction of research platforms + joint talent training + technology and industry transformation", learning deepens research and accelerates production. What BGI College is exploring is not only a new model for talent cultivation, but also a systematic project that integrates education, research and industry. It puts students in the loop of the real world, so that "'learning'" is not only about grades and papers, but also about producing value, connecting with society and serving the future.

References

[1] “华大基因 - 基因科技造福人类,” 华大基因BGI, 2024. https://www.bgi.com/

[2] “新华财经：《预见中国》获美国泰利奖金奖，华大基因讲述科技普惠故事,” 华大基因BGI, 2023. https://www.bgi.com/news/2023061605 (accessed May 28, 2025).

[3] 测序中国, “专访华大基因徐讯：建构精准医学生态系统之路的新坐标,” 检验视界网, 2015. https://www.ivdchina.org/ivdnews/show-13028.html (accessed May 28, 2025).

[4] BGI Group, “BGI-Research in Serbia: Empowering Innovation in Algorithm Development and Life Science Education,” YouTube, Sep. 23, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHE8jJKnEE (accessed May 28, 2025).