The Annual Progress Review Meeting of the Chinese National Compound Library (CNCL) was held in Shanghai on December 15, 2014. Thirty-three delegates representing the CNCL core facility, six satellite libraries and eleven institutions that will participate in the proposed “regional resource centers” attended the meeting. The meeting was chaired by Professor Fajun Nan, Deputy Director of CNCL.

After brief opening remarks by Professor Ming-Wei Wang, Director of CNCL, Professor Jingrong Cui (School of Pharmacy, Peking University), Professor Junhai Xiao (Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing), Assistant Professor Feng Wang (Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing), Associate Professor Tao Pang (the Drug Screening Center of China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing), Deputy Section Chief Chuan Li (Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Director Wei Tang (Hangzhou High-throughput Drug Screening Center) reported their respective progresses made during the past year and development plans for 2015.

Professor Ming-Wei Wang then gave a work report relative to the overall achievements made by CNCL in 2014 that include the core facility and the six satellite libraries. He proposed a major task for the coming year, i.e., transformation of satellite libraries to “regional resource centers”. Mr. Lei Wan from Shanghai Inforstack Co., Ltd. briefed the audience about the progresses in building an online platform to facilitate resource sharing and screening services, which will be open to public for trial use shortly. The attendants discussed in detail on the optimization, promotion and application of this online network.

Following a working lunch, Professor Jingyu Yang (Dean of College of Life Sciences and Biopharmaceuticals, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University), Professor Shuyi Si (Director of National Center for Microbial Drug Screening, the Institute of Medicinal of Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences), Professor Min Huang (Dean of School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University), Dr. Xin Li (Lecturer of College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University) and Professor Qinshi Zhao (Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences) reported their respective plans to establish “regional resource centers” in their geographical regions and a specialty library containing microbial second metabolites. The attendants were then divided into three groups such as North China, East and West China and South China regions for roundtable discussions. Representatives of each group presented their views and suggestions thereafter, when Drs. Ming-Wei Wang and Fajun Nan gave answers to some of the questions raised by the audience, before arrangement of the 2015 tasks.