China in Africa

Financed by the Nanjing Yangtze Group with an investment of over 6 billion Yuan, the center offers a genome sequencing capacity of up to 500,000 people per year. A data storage center already completed will be able to store health and medical records of 80 million people.

China Bio news release, October 30, 2017

XU Guowang of CAS Dalian Instiute of Chemical Physics’ Institute of Biotechnology has found a new biomarker pattern consisting of phenylalanyl-tryptophan and glycocholate with a higher diagnostic performance than α-fetoprotein (AFP), which is the traditional biomarker for HCC. 80.6% of the AFP false-negative patients with HCC were correctly diagnosed using this panel in a test set of 1448 individuals in 6 hospitals.

CAS news release, October 27, 2017

The group of CHEN Liquan at Qingdao Industrial Energy Storage Research Institute (QIESRI), a division of CAS QIBEBT, has discovered that highly concentrated aqueous electrolytes can optimize the Zn stripping/deposition processes and have proposed a smart cooling-recovery function by using a thermoreversible hydrogel as the functional electrolyte, which can repair the interfacial failure during cycling. These new types of Zn batteries exhibit high safety, energy density up to 40 Wh/kg, cycling life up to 500 times and cost less than 0.7 ￥/Wh. In addition, novel boron-centered, anion-based Mg-ion electrolytes characterized by high ionic conductivity, non-nucleophilicity, and a wide electrochemical window, provided potential benefits and new research directions for future low-cost secondary Mg batteries. 

CAS news release, October 27, 2017

QCEL aims at acquiring and evaluating local carbon emission data, studying and establishing methods, tools and modeling, and proposing practical proposals for a low-carbon strategy of Qingdao. This municipal carbon data/assessment engineering lab will address bottlenecks such as inaccuracy and decentralization of fundamental data and inapplicability of international mature approaches. QFEL cooperates with the Energy Foundation China (EFC), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), Institute for Sustainable Community (ISC) and others, and is seeking international partnerships.

China Bio news release, October 27, 2017

The species cover chicken, dog, goat, human, poplar, rice and tomato and incorporate 8,669 individual genotypes and 13,262 manually curated high-quality genotype-to-phenotype associations for non-human species. GVM serves as an important resource for archiving genomic variation data, and is helpful for better understanding population genetic diversity and deciphering complex mechanisms associated with different phenotypes.

CAS news release, October 27, 2017

Starting and landing at Pucheng International Airport, the AT200 UAV aircraft completed its 26 min maiden flight on Oct. 26. The aircraft is equipped with Canadian Pratt & Whitney’s 750-horsepower PT6A turboprop engines and an advanced flight control and command system. It is 11.84 meters long, has a wingspan of 12.80 meters, and is 4.04 meters high. Maximum takeoff weight is 3.4 tons. Loading capacity is 10 cubic meters, for a load up to 1.5 tons , cruise speed is 313 km/h. It can fly up to 8 hours, within a range of 2183 km, and up to 6098 meters altitude. It is designed for freight feeder transport and can take off and land fully loaded on 200 meters simple runways even unpaved and with slopes.

CAS news release, October 27, 2017

The Zhangjiang Biobank has a storage capacity for 10 million samples of tissue, cells, organs, blood samples and other. It will also store 500,000 tumor tissue samples presently held in Shanghai’s National Engineering Research Center. The Zhangjiang Biobank will also establish a Helicobacter pylori and drug-resistant strains” library, as a resource for research and translational medicine.”

China Bio news release, October 26, 2017

The Lake Nankang Qiyibai Biotechnology Co., Ltd. in Hunan, Wuhan Province (short Kang Biotech Co.) and Dupont’s Genencor Co. have entered into talks on a strategic cooperation for the development of the Chinese probiotic market. Kang Biotech is a leading supplier of cosmetic and dietary products and provides appropriate production facilities for the sensitive manufacturing and storage requirements of probiotics. Probiotics sales in China are booming at 20 % growth per year, and Genencor, with a growth of its China probiotics business of 50 % over the last 3 years, has announced to expand the capacity of its facility in Beijing.

China Bio news release, October 26, 2017

The piglets were bred by knock-in of gene UCP1, coding for a mitochondrial brown fat uncoupling protein, which plays an important role in maintaining animal body temperature and energy balance. The ancestors of modern domestic pigs lost the UCP1 gene 20 million years ago. In the studies by ZHAO Jianguo and his team, the UCP1 gene was added to the genome of pig fibroblasts through genetic editing tools, more than 2,500 transgenic pig embryos were cultivated, and embryos were implanted into 13 surrogate sows, of which three sows beame pregnant and produced 12 male piglets. Compared to wild-type pigs, the transgenic pig’s body temperature regulation ability was significantly enhanced, fat production rate and fat thickness was reduced by 24 %, and the amount of lean meat was significantly increased.

China Bio news release, October 25, 2017

Along a coastal line of 18,000 km, China is initiating the first unmanned boats „Jianghai“ to collect data and take videos. Jinghai No. 3 is 6.28 meters long and 2.86 meters wide, with a load capacity of 2.6 tonnes and a cruising power of 200 nautical miles. It can conduct automatic topographical mapping, sea floor exploration and environmental monitoring.

CAS news release, October 24, 2017-10-25

The satellite named CFOSAT will operate in an orbit of 500 km for 3 years. It will be equipped with a surface-wave monitoring radar developed in France, which is already delivered, and a wind scatterometer developed in China. The satellite will analyze the wind and waves on the ocean’s surface and their effects on the air-sea interface, for a better understanding about climate change.

CAS news release, October 24, 2017-10-25

According to a review by China’s Firestone Services, China is expected by 2020 to cover a market for medical information of 43 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 11 %. Internet-based medical care is playing an increasingly important role in improving hospital efficiency, ensuring medical safety and reducing medical costs.

China Bio news release, October 23, 2017

The group of YANG Hongsheng and colleagues have established a genome map of Apostichopus japonicas which reveal the genetic and molecular basis for the evolution and future breeding of this industrially important marine organism.

CAS news release, October 16, 2016

The group of LI Can has found that a bimetallic solid oxide catalyst ZnO-ZrO2 provides a dual active center reaction site composed of Zn and Zr, in which H2 and CO2 are activated at the Zn sites and show synergistic effects in the CO2 hydrogenation process, so that methanol is produced with high selectivity. In situ infrared – mass spectrometric isotope experiments and DFT theoretical calculations show that surface HCOO* and H3CO* are the main active intermediate species of the reaction. The catalyst was used for 500 hours without inactivation. It had excellent sintering stability and a certain ability to resist sulfur, providing good industrial prospects.

CAS news release, October 20, 2017

According to the agreement, Bayer will utilize the big data provided by the Alibaba platform to follow health trends among Chinese people and better satisfy their self-care demands. The government’s ‘Healthy China 2030’ plan aims to provide equal access to health services for every citizen by 2030. Self-care will be one of the key drivers in the overall medical system to achieve this goal. Bayer started to offer its over-the-counter products on Tmall’s flagship store in 2016, and to date, it has launched seven flagship stores in a variety of e-commerce platforms in China.

China Daily, October 21, 2017