Dr. Willem Gerard van Aken joined the center in the 1990s. In 1998, Qian Kaicheng, the deputy director of the center, Zhu Ziyan and Wang Xun from the institute were invited to visit CLB in Netherlands, and were received by Prof. Aken. His enthusiasm, straightforwardness and erudition made this visit very smooth and as a result, everyone benefited a lot from it. Dr. Wang Xun recalled that his mission was to learn the knowledge of external quality controls on infectious diseases caused by blood transfusions. Prof. Aken endeavored to help him and introduced him to Dr. Nico Lelie who had rich experience in external quality assessments on infectious disease screening examinations. Subsequently, they made a series of collaborations on external quality assessments, which laid a solid foundation for the center's work on external quality controls of infectious diseases caused by blood transfusions. The RHD gene multiple PCR diagnostic technology at the Shanghai Blood Center was also introduced by Professor Aken from the Netherlands Rotterdam Blood Center, which is still recognized by the blood transfusion circle as the most reliable RHD gene diagnostic technology until now.

In October, 2008, Prof. Aken attended the first-phase blood-station-head training class and also gave lessons. He introduced the laws and regulations on blood transfusions in the European Union and Canada, two developed countries or regions apart from the United States. European laws and regulations were mainly enacted and issued by the EU Council, but each member state must abide by anything stipulated in the regulations and laws. Each member state could hold different opinions of such regulations and laws and demonstrated different attitudes towards the laws and regulations. Of course, member states could also adopt measures which were stricter than those regulations and laws mentioned above. When member states agreed that the actions of individual countries were not enough, the European Union could help them to formulate laws. Agreements were mutually recognized among the EU, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Japan. The European Union Directive 2002/98/EC was the core directive for EU blood transfusions. It established quality and safety standards for the collection, testing, processing, storage, and distribution of human blood and blood components. At the same time, it also confirmed to the public that human blood and blood components donated in other member states conformed to their own national standards. Prof. Aken made a detailed introduction into the content and significance of this core directive. He also briefly introduced the blood warning system of the Netherlands. Canada's blood system was supervised and managed by the Canadian Ministry of Public Health, which was responsible for the supervision of the blood system, the monitoring and review of blood and blood products, the formulation of policies, the updating of blood safety standards, the establishment of laboratory standards, the testing of reagents, the approval and utilization of medical devices, the monitoring of after-sale markets and the compliance & implementation of procedures. Canada’s blood system was assessed by the World Health Organization as one of the safest blood systems in the world, which was directly related to legislative and regulatory systems in Canada. Prof. Aken also introduced the execution and implementation of Canada’s blood safety standards. He hoped that Chinese blood managers could gain new enlightenment from different perspectives. Prof. Aken believed that the implementation framework, sound risk assessments and risk management principles formulated under strict decision-makings could support the entire blood transfusion management framework. His courses broadened the horizons of trainees and were uniformly appreciated.

Professor Willem Gerard van Aken was invited to present in Educational Courses for the Leaders of Blood Services in 2008.