According to the report of Nature Biotechnology published on December 8, the Massive Analysis and Quality Control Society (MAQC) was formally established and Leming Shi, Professor of School of Life Science Fudan University and Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, was elected the first chairman,and 2018 annual meeting was determined to be held at Fudan University.

An important goal of precision medicine research is to dig out biomarkers that can accurately diagnose, accurately treat, and accurately prevent disease from omics big data. However, limited to the factors such as current level of the use of related technology platforms, the performance of data processing methods and analysts’ comprehensive quality, etc., the problem of repeatabilityand reliability of omics big data has become a bottleneck in the industry, which seriously hampers the reliable application of high-throughput omics technology in scientific research and clinical practice. The establishment of MAQC Society will help to change this situation. It will focus on improving the reproducibility and reliability of high-throughput omics technologies ( including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.).

MAQC Society aims to improve the repeatability among batches, laboratories,platforms and multiple data analysis methods through the development and application of standard analysis methods for quality control and biomedical big data, deepen the understanding and optimization of omics big data processing and analysis methods and promote reliable application of big data technology in drug development, clinical application and drug safety/risk assessment. MAQC Society will provide an objective and open discussion platform for the repeatability study of omics big data for group studies, promote collaborative research and share the results with the general public. MAQC Society attaches importance to conduct scientific dialogues and cooperation with other relevant national and international organizations to promote the exchange of scientific research, education and repeatability science. In addition, the MAQC Society will devote a lot of energy to support, encourage and deeply instruct the career development of young experts who are engaged in the research of the MAQC Institute’s target areas.

Leming Shi is now the PI of State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering Fudan University and Collaborative Innovation Center for Genetics and Development and the National Thousand Talents Plan Specialist. He initiated andled MAQC/SEQC, a large-scale international cooperative research project on quality control and standardization analysis of gene chips and next-generation sequencing data in 2005, attracting nearly 300 scientists from more than 100 organizations in more than 10 countries to participate together. His research results have been published by the Nature Publishing Group in 2006, 2010 and 2014, and three albums have been created, and a dedicated website has been established to give key recommendations (www.nature.com/nbt/focus/maqc/, www.nature.com/focus/maqc2/, andwww.nature.com/nbt/collections/seqc/). The US FDA has accordingly formulated the corresponding guidelines for pharmacogenomics, which has promoted the healthy development of omics technology.

The annual meeting of the MAQC Society will be held at Fudan University from February 24-27, 2018. The theme of the conference will be “Precision Medicine and Clinical Trials”. For details, please seehttp://www.maqcsociety.org/。