On October 30, 2023, Professor Melody Zeng from Weill Cornell Medical College, Professor Liu Tiemin from School of Life Sciences of Fudan University and Li Hong, Editor-in-Chief from Taylor & Francis Publishing Group visited MED-X Institute for academic exchange. In the afternoon, the academic lecture was held in Room 2079, Building 21, iHarbour. Vice President Ma Xiancang of the First Affiliated Hospital (FAH) of Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) was invited to attend the activity and delivered a speech. Experts from School of Pharmacy, Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, School of Basic Medical Sciences and relevant teachers and students from MED-X Institute also attended the activity.

On behalf of XJTU and the hospital, Vice President Ma Xiancang welcomed the visiting of three professors. He highlighted that Xi'an is the starting point of the Silk Road, XJTU and the FAH of XJTU are actively responding to the Party and the country's initiative to build the "Belt and Road Initiative" and establish a community of shared future for mankind. The Western China Science & Technology Innovation Harbour (iHarbour) is an important platform for Shaanxi province and XJTU to implement three national strategies including the "Belt and Road Initiative", innovation driven-development and western development. This academic activity is expected to further strengthen communication between bilateral sides and lay a solid foundation for establishing long-term and intimate scientific research cooperation in the future.

Subsequently, Professor Melody Zeng delivered a presentation entitled "Immune regulation by the gut microbiome in early life", sharing the team’s latest research results and ideas. Professor Liu Tiemin shared the research experience and frontier progress in obesity and related metabolic diseases in a presentation entitled "Study of the mechanism of metabolism regulation by central nervous system". Editor-in-Chief Li Hong also gave a presentation entitled “Taylor & Francis assists researchers to achieve efficient publishing in the field of life sciences and medicine” and shared hands-on experience in writing and publishing academic papers from the perspective of journal editors. Bilateral sides carried out heated discussion.