Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, China

Prof. Xiu Qiu has dedicated her career to advancing maternal and child health through the integration of biomedical sciences, technology, and epidemiology. Her work focuses on applying data-driven methods to improve health outcomes. Prof. Qiu led the establishment of the Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study (BIGCS), the largest prospective birth cohort study in China. From 2012 to date, BIGCS has recruited more than 60,000 mother-child pairs and built a state-of-the-art biobank storing more than 2.8 million biospecimens.

The BIGCS serves as a crucial research platform, supporting over 70 research projects and receiving more than 50 million RMB of research funding. The BIGCS team has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles across international journals such as Nature, JAMA, Lancet, J Infect, and PLoS Med, contributing critical insights into: 1) quality improvement for obstetric and maternal and child health care services, 2) complex gene-environment interaction and its effect on maternal and child health outcomes, and 3) interventions to prevent woman and child diseases.

In her academic career, Prof. Qiu has held positions across several leading health organizations. She serves as the Vice Chair of the Women’s Health Care Capacity Building Committee within the Chinese Association for Maternal and Child Health Research, Standing Committee Member of the Women’s Health Care Branch at the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, and Standing Committee Member of the Precision Medicine Committee of the China Maternal and Child Health Association, highlighting her leadership in advancing women’s health care capabilities and improving preventive and precision medicine for maternal and child health.