The 47th International Exhibition of Inventions was successfully held in Geneva, Switzerland from April 10 to 14, 2019. It is the first time that the TUSM team participated in the exhibition, and the team of Prof. Xv Guotong won the silver medal. The Geneva International Invention Exhibition was founded in 1973 by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Swiss Federal Government, which is one of the largest and the most well-known invention exhibitions in the world. It is also an important international platform for the transformation of high-tech and industry-university-research cooperation.

There were thousands of research achievements from universities, enterprises and scientific research institutions, which came from more than fifty countries and areas, such as the United States, Germany, France, China etc. What’s more, national intellectual property offices, Volkswagen, General Electric and other World Top 500 companies sent their staffs to investigate the cooperation and transfer of patent rights.

The exhibition set Gold Medal AFJ Award, Gold Award, Silver Award and Bronze Award, with a winning percentage of approximately 30%. Prof. Xu Guotong’s team won the Silver Award. It effectively enhanced TUSM’s international influence of scientific and technological achievements, fully demonstrated the tremendous vitality of innovation and scientific research strength, which laid the foundation for promoting the international cooperation of production, study and research.

President of the Geneva International Invention Exhibition came to Tongji University’s booth to express congratulations.

The R&D achievement exhibited from Prof. Xu Guotong is “antagonizing glial cell maturation factors against diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy and diabetic osteoporosis”, which is also the research achievement of the “973” National Major Scientific Research Plan. Since the Glia maturation factor beta (GMFB) is first isolated from the glial cells in central nervous system, it is highly expressed during development and expressed less under adult and normal physiological conditions. Prof. Xu Guotong ‘s research team found that GMFB has high sensitivity to hyperglycemia and hyperexpression phenomenon  in the early period of experimental diabetic retinopathy (DR), diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic osteoporosis (DO). GMFB, as a master gene, controls the release of downstream inflammatory factors including MCP-1, IL-1β, TNFα and Kim-1. Therefore intervention of GMFB can effectively prevent the occurrence and development of DR, DN and DO. This research achievement has made a major breakthrough in the early detection and treatment of diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy and diabetic osteoporosis.

Prof. Lv lixia from Prof. Xu Guotong’s team made introduction to the jury.