Strategies of Nurturing Innovative Talents of Bioinformatics Major at the Agricultural and Forestry Universities in China from the Perspective of New Agricultural Science

Bioinformatics, as a growing interdisciplinary field with a wide range of applications, now plays a significant role in promoting the development of green agriculture. The New Agricultural Science (NAS) innovation program has been imposing new challenges to nurture innovative talents of the bioinformatics major at agricultural and forestry universities. Based on the talent demands for NAS program at Hebei Agricultural University (HAU), we proposed six specific and feasible talent nurturing schemes after our preliminary practical testing. (1) Building a curriculum for the bioinformatics major that is suitable for agricultural and forestry universities; (2) Integrating bioinformatics teaching resources across agricultural and forestry universities nationwide and establish a nationwide virtual teaching and research platform; (3) Constructing and implementing a project-driven teaching system and a talent nurturing model that promotes learning through competition; (4) Exploring interdisciplinary curriculum design; (5) Integrating large language models into bioinformatics education; (6) Establishing a cooperation mechanism with enterprises and research institutions. With future continuous optimization and updating of educational policies and institutional frameworks, HAU is expecting a great success at nurturing high-quality innovative talents in bioinformatics, contributing to the modernization of agriculture in our country and the sustainable global agriculture development.