The Department of International Cooperation and Graduate Student held, jointly with MOA-CABI Joint Laboratory of Bio-Safety, the 2nd Training Course for Biostatistics and Experimental Design on 27-30 October, 2015, to reinforce the course construction inplant protection teaching and research section and to upgrade the capability of graduate students in experimental design, data analysis, English and international exchange. The Course was taught in English. Senior scientist Dr. Dirk Babendreier from CABI Switzerland Centre taught the Course. More than 40 graduate students and young scientific staff participated the training. The students were from IPP, Biotechnology ResearchInstitute, the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Feed Research Institute and MOA-CABI Joint Laboratory of Bio-Safety. The distance education system of CAAS was used for the first time during the Training Course. Graduates at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Institute of Pomology shared thebasic theories of the course. This was a novel attempt in synchronous real-time teleteaching and sharing of education resources.

The Training Course was opened in the morning on 27 October. Dr. Chen Julian, the Director of the Department of International Cooperation and Graduate Student extended a warm welcome to Dr. Babendreier on behalf of IPP. She encouraged the students to study well and emphasized the scientific and strict design was the first step led to a good research and rational data analysis was the primary guarantee to get scientific conclusion. The 2nd Training Course was the extension of last year's course. Dr. Babendreier recalled the background and key points taught last year which included experimental design and analysis, measurement and sampling, statistic analysis, statistic inference and statistic tests. He introduced, in detail, the preliminary processing of data and the scopes of application of different data tests and let the students do in-class practice. More than 10 participants provided the actual experimental design, sampling method and part of data after the finishing of theory part of the course. These materials were used as case studies during the following two days. The statistic methods that should be used were discussed and analyzed in-class. The Training Course obtained good result and it played positive role in promoting the capability of the graduates and young scientists at IPP in experimental design and data analysis.

Dr. Babendreier is known to work on biological control and integrated management of insect pests. He is good at the researches in natural enemies and the risk assessment of transgenic crops. He is now a member of the Editorial Board of BioControl, one of the top journals in international bio-control research. Dr. Babendreier is also a peer reviewer for journals like Biological Control, Molecular Ecology, Apidologie, Journal of Insect Physiology, etc.