Zhou Qi, a research fellow from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, speaks highly of the significance of scientific and technological cooperation: "I have proposed cooperation with the French Institute for Agronomy Research in setting up a joint laboratory in China. Now the institute is sending its researchers to China and we also take French international students for advanced studies."

Zhou now leads one of the two Chinese research teams which have grown living, breeding mice from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

The Nature journal hails in its July 2009 issue Zhou's success as a breakthrough in the global research on stem cells.

Zhou and Dautry share the view that international cooperation leads not only to breakthroughs in research results but also to breakthroughs in fostering research talent.

Zhou, director of the China National Stem Cell Bank, said it was through international cooperation and through bringing in talented people from abroad to form a research base in China that his team has finally made the breakthrough in stem cell research.

Zhou also said that making the most of overseas resources should play a major role in efforts toward leading the trend in China's scientific and technological research in the future.

Dautry said the Pasteur Institute of Shanghai has brought to the fore quite a number of Chinese talents in the country's research circle, especially in the public health sector.

The Shanghai institute has created an atmosphere by mingling research concepts and techniques.