·July 19, 2002: BGI was visited by Prof. Richard J. Roberts, the 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; he is also a Chief Scientific Officer of New England Biolabs and a Senior Executive Editor of Nucleic Acids Research. During his visit, Dr Roberts presented the staff with an insightful seminar on restriction enzyme. After his lecture, he met with researchers in the BGI Bioinformatics Department and provided counsel on the database and software projects that were currently under development.

·On August 11, 2006: Douglas Wallace, the Director of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center at the University of California, San Diego, visited BGI.

·March 12, 2001: BGI was delighted to host a visit from Academician Longping Yuan. Known as the Father of Hybrid Rice, his work in the 1960s resulted in a vast increase in rice production throughout the world.

·October 18, 2006: BGI was honored to host a visit from James D. Watson, the Father of DNA, and 1962 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine.

 ·On July 3, 2004, British National Structural Genomics Delegation, including Molecular Biophysics Prof. Louise Johnson from Oxford University, Jennifer Susan Moynihan the Director of Life Science-Enterprise Development Department of Reading University, Drake Stephen Eggleston the Vice President of GSK and etc., visited BGI.

·July 4, 2007, Dr Deng Xinwang, the President of the Beijing Life Science Institute as well as a professor of Yale University Botany Department and Director and Director of the Center of Beijing-Yale University Plant Molecular Genetics & Agricultural Biotechnology, together with other experts visited BGI-Shenzhen  and had in-dept discussion with leaders and experts form BGI-Shenzhen. 

·November 15, 2008, Professor Samir K. Brahmachair, the director general of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) visited BGI-Shenzhen.

·On Feb. 12 2009, Academician Yan Shen (Chinese Academy of Science), Xiaoning Wang (director of College of Life Science from South China University of Technology) visited BGI-Shenzhen accompanied by Director Jian Wang, Association Director Jun Wang and Songgang Li.

·On March 5th 2009, accompanied by Jian Wang the Director of BGI-Shenzhen, Jingwu Zhu the Chancellor of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology visited BGI-Shenzhen.