August 15th, the mid-term review conference of the National 973 Project, "Basic research of molecular probes to identify tumor-specific serum markers", chaired by Prof. Tian He was held in our university. National 973 Program Advisory Group Experts: Prof. Zhang Yukui (Academican, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Chen Siping (Shenzhen University); Project Peer Experts: Prof. Chen Xiaoming (Academican, Sun Yat-sen University), Prof. Xie Yi (Academican, University of Science and Technology of China), Prof. Ding Kuiling (Academican, Director of Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Liu Maili (Director of Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Jiang Hualiang (Director of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Tong Zhen (South China University of Technology), Prof. Yu Jihong (Jilin University), Prof. Zhai Hongbin (Lanzhou University) and other more than 30 experts, project leaders and academic backbones from Peking University, Fudan University, Dalian University of Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Chemistry, East China University of Science and Technology attended the meeting.

    First, Prof. Yang Xianjin (Party Secretary of ECUST) warmly welcomed experts to visit our school and participate the National 973 Project mid-term review conference on behalf of ECUST. He sincerely hoped that the experts would give a comprehensive guide to the future development of the team and provide valuable comments and suggestions.

    Prof. Tian He briefed the overall progress of the project in the last two years. He pointed out that the project is progressing well under the care and support of administrations and the joint efforts undertaken by project researchers. After nearly two years of hard work, the 973 team achieved fruitful results in high levels of papers published in various aspects and clinical applications. Furthermore, several honors and prizes have been achieved including the Second Prize for National Natural Science (1), Innovation Group of National Natural Science Foundation of China (2), National Outstanding Youth Fund (2) and National Excellent Youth Fund (2). After that, four project leaders reported respectively on the positioning and targets, planning and completion, research progress and innovation as well as achievements, talent-culture, cooperation and existing problems and adjustment of the subjects.

    During the discussion, Prof. Zhang Yukui fully approved the development of the project achievements, and gave guidance and suggestions on some of the key issues during the implementation of the project. The expert group seriously discussed the working status and research prospect, and gave a high evaluation to the progress on the project and put forward many valuable suggestions. Experts believed that the project made a series of encouraging results in less than two years, also created several possible opportunity of major breakthrough.

    In the end, Prof. Tian He (Chief scientist of this project) summarized the advice of the experts proposed and feedback to each research group, and then specifically deployed the project work for the next 3 years according to the evaluations of this mid-term review.