"Yes, the information is open and we have very good communication with other laboratories in the UK," answered Mark Stevens with the Institute for Animal Health when asked by a reporter from local media in Beijing about the transparency of their research. His answer was immediately confirmed by Professor Liu Shu-lin with Department of Microbiology, Peking University, who was sitting next to him.

Liu, together with his British colleagues including Mark who traveled all the way from the UK to China, were bombarded with questions concerning their bio-research on food safety by reporters from leading and local Chinese media on March 10. Before that, leading experts from China and UK had spent three days in Beijing to attend China-UK Workshop on foodborne Pathogens which was jointly organized by China National Center for Biotechnology Development (CNCBD) and Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council, UK (BBSRC).

This is the second conference in Beijing for UK-China Partners in Science, a campaign promoting the exchanges and cooperation between China and the UK on science and technology. The first was the 3rd China-UK Hi-tech Forum held in Tsinghua University in January which also marked the launch of the whole campaign. The year-long program has been initiated by the UK to promote the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries built during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to London in May last year.

Food safety is a very hot topic in China these days. An online dialogue at People's Daily Online recently between Mr. Wang Qinping, Vice Director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China, attracted some 50,000 netizens who raised more than 500 questions.

The case is the same in the UK. "Food poisoning is high profile in the UK," said Mike Gasson, Head of Food Safety Science with the Institute of Food Safety, who was also at the briefing. He proved this by showing in his slide how heavily this issue was reported by press in his country.

"It is an international problem," he asserted, so we need to "look for an international solution."

"China has increasingly been aware of the importance of food safety in its participation into the globalization in recent years," Professor Liu said.

This is the first time for him to have face-to-face communication with those British experts. It is also the first time for most of his guests to come to China for exchanges of ideas with Chinese experts.

Their discussions were focused on the detection and prevention of foodborne pathogens which are significant cause of illness or even disability and death. What's more, the consequence is expensive as it is a major cost to the economy and it damages the food industry.

British scientists also shared their experience on promoting the application of the results of their research by working with companies and government regulatory agencies for food safety.

The globalization, world food trade, increased international travel and the introduction and development of new technologies all add to risks of the foodborne pathogens and difficulty addressing the issue globally.

That is why all these experts from China and UK are there. Dr. Jay Hinton said they had just "a little idea" about the specific problems that China faced on food safety before he came over for the seminar. But apparently they have begun to pay attention to the situation in China as they mentioned some cases in China in their presentations.

They would like to learn more about this issue in China. Professor Liu acknowledged China still lagged behind on the research. He believes joint efforts help to make progress on addressing the "global problem".

Communication between scientists is one of the main purposes of the year-long campaign of UK-China Partners in Science.

Actually Dr. Jay Hinton has very happy experience on working with his Chinese colleague on studies on salmonella.

Both British and Chinese experts have showed strong interest in concrete cooperation on the research on foodborne pathogens. Yet still they need to find out in what way and in what field will their collaboration be best justified.