China in Africa

According tot he Ministry of Science and Technology, the spending reached 1.54 trillion yuan (233 billion USD) last year, with over 78 % coming from enterprises. S&T-related contributions contributed 56 % to China’s economic growth in 2016.

CAS news release, October 20, 2016

In stark contrast to the previous generation of Chinese companies that focused on domestic growth until the market became saturated, emerging startups are better at coming up with their own ideas and better aware of the opportunities abroad. By the end of last year, the country had nearly 26 million registered private and State-owned businesses, a rise of 18.8 percent from the previous year. 71 internet companies are unicorns”, that is, private businesses valued at more than $1 billion each. Four of them－Didi Chuxing, Xiaomi, Lu and Meituan-Dianping－are on the list of the world’s 10 most valuable unicorns. China’s artificial intelligence sector may already be equal to those in leading global powers in terms of voice, image and semantics recognition technologies. Online shopping is now the norm for hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. In the past five years, China’s online retail market has surged from 1.3 trillion yuan ($196.5 billion) to 5.2 trillion yuan, raising living standards in both big cities and villages. According to eMarketer, by 2020, half of China’s digital shoppers – about 350 million people－will be buying foreign products online and total sales will top $157 billion. This is supported by IT and space industries – the Chinese Beidou Navigation Satellite System, covering China since 2015, is set to cover the world with more satellites by 2020.”

CAS news release, October 20, 2017

The research group of JIA Huijue at Shenzhen’s BGI found that special microbiota exist in the reproductive system of healthy females which may be used as biomarkers for certain diseases. They analyzed the microorganisms in six regions of 110 healthy women of childbearing age and found that lactobacilli were abundantly present in the vagina and fornix, whereas in the upper regions these were replaced by Pseudomonas and other bacteria. Composition of microbiota changed with the menstrual cycle and were associated to illnesses such as endometriosis. The finding may lead to the identification of biomarkers for vaginal-uterine disorders, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00901-0

China Bio news release, October 19, 2017

Among 12 healthcare-related features, key issues were to stimulate entrepreneurial spirit and innovation, fully implement a national insurance program, adhere to both Western and Chinese medicine, cope by the ageing of the population through a fertility policy, promote the food safety strategy, and implement a „healthy China“ strategy.

Xinhua, October 19, 2017

A Canadian-Chinese study on the intestional microbiome of over very healthy 1000 Chinese people, aged from 3 to 100 years, found that a healthy older person is more likely to have a young” intestinal tract microbiome composition. Gut microbe composition of an extremely healthy 90-year-old may be similar to a 30-years-old. This suggests that maintaining the diversity of the intestinal flora is a biomarker of healthy aging, just as low cholesterol is the biomarker of a healthy circulatory system, and opens avenues to introduce new microbiological diagnostic systems and then suggest adequate food and probiotics to improve healthy ageing, http://msphere.asm.org/content/2/5/e00327-17″

China Bio news release, October 19, 2017

Prenetics https://prenetics.com/en/ is among the top genetic testing companies in Asia, with focus on pharmacogenomics, nutrigenomics, inherited cancer screening and family planning. Headquarter is in Hong Kong, and services are provided in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The investment is in preparation for entering the Chinese market.

China Bio news release, October 18, 2017

Examples are a transgenic Yellow River carp, developed by ZHU Zuoyan’s group at the CAS Institute of Hydrobiology. Engineered for a triploid expression of the fish’s growth hormone, it grows 50 – 100 % faster. Taste and ecological behavior are considered equivalent to the wild-type carp. Another example is transgenic phytase maize which would help to reduce the use of inorganic phosphates and has already obtained a safety certificate back in 2009, but still awaits listing. Vitamin A-containing “golden rice” has also been developed in China but was not yet listed, as is true for “high-resistant starch transgenic rice”, a variety which contains a difficult-to-digest starch variety and could help to control weight, or ACEI gene rice, where an angiotensin converting enzyme resistance agent (ACEI) agent is expressed, promoting angiogenesis and reducing blood pressure. In view of public opinion, none of these products have been cleared for consumption by the Chinese authorities.

China Bio news release, October 18, 2017

The “Human Cell Atlas” project established by the Facebook-supported Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will invest 3 billion USD over the next decade on basic research towards a human cell atlas https://www.humancellatlas.org. Among the 38 funded projects is a study on bioinformatics of transcriptome analysis of single cells, using RNA sequencing, proposed by Zhang Xuegong at Tsinghua University who has helped to develop this field over the last decade.

China Bio news release, October 17, 2017

According to LI Shaohua, a specialist in this field at CAS Institute of Botany, the first 10.000 m2 Chinese plant was installed in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, as late as June 2016. He sees a great perspective for this technology in China, because a) due to urbanization, land will become scarce and productivity of vertical farming is much higher, b) technology is becoming mature, c) soil quality is deteriorating, d) the Chinese approach of using modular systems for plant construction will decrease prices dramatically. Apart from vegetables and fruits like tomato, the cultivation of fruits, flowers and medicinal plants is already being investigated.

China Bio news release, October 17, 2017

Developed by the CAS Shenyang Institute of Automation, the glider moves not by a propeller, but by an oil sac like a fish maw. By changing the size of the sac, the glider can change its net buoyancy so that it can move up and down. A pair of ‘wings’ generates a thrust along the horizontal direction of moving forward, which will enable it to follow a W-shaped trail like a dolphin while moving underwater. During a 91-day voyage, the glider survived hazardous sea conditions triggered by five typhoons in succession, which fully demonstrated its reliability and stability. Advanced underwater gliders will not only assist China’s deep sea scientific research but also serve military purposes such as detecting foreign submarines in China’s waters

CAS news release, October 16, 2017

Studies by FU Qiaomei at CAS Institute of Paleoanthropology on ancient DNA extracted from 40,000 years old human bones found near Beijing have shown that the „Tianyuan Man“ inherited about as much Neandertal DNA, 4% to 5%, as ancient Europeans and Asians of similar age, and shares SNPs with a 35,000 year old modern human from Belgium. But he doesn’t share it with other ancient humans who lived at roughly the same time in Romania and Siberia—or with living Europeans. This suggests that the Tianyuan Man was not a direct ancestor, but rather a distant cousin, of a founding population in Asia that gave rise to present-day Asians. The finding shows that ancient populations moved around and interbred.

CAS news release, October 13, 2017

Organized by the World Data Center for Microorganisms and microbial data centers in 11 other countries including DSZM in Germany, the program of the cooperation is to sequence over 10,000 microbial genomes within 5 years, finally covering over 90 % of all microbial taxa. The network cooperates and shares data with more than 45 countries worldwide.

CAS news release, October 12, 2017

Studies have shown that a whole genome duplication event that happened around 100 million years ago played an important role in the origin of aerobic fermentation in Saccharomyces.Two groups at CAS Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology have now shown that, about 300 million years ago, the other wine and beer yeast, Dekkera bruxellensis, also generated the capacity of aerobic fermentation long before Saccharomyces cerevisiae. By profiling and comparing genome sequences, transcriptomic landscapes and chromatin structures, they showed that no whole genome duplication was necessary in Dekkera to arrive at this metabolic pathway, but rather AT-rich elements in the promoter regions of mitochondrial genes led to a metabolic convergence in two independent yeast species.

CAS news release, October 12, 2017

From the total expenditure of 1567.7 billion Yuan (+ 10.6 % compared to 2015), 5.2 was spent for basic research, 10.3 % for applied research, and 84.5 % for investments and infrastructure. Industry supplied 77.5 %, the central government 14.4 %, and local units 6.8 %. 6 Provinces and municipalities spent over 100 billion Yuan each, in the following ranking: Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Beijing, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Among the topics with most funding, chemistry ranked at position 3, and medicine at position 4. (information from Dr XIONG Xin)

China Statistical Office, October 2017

According to a survey by Sina Publisher, China at present has over 100 different stem cell industry-related enterprises. Since 2011, when the State Health Commission and the Food and Drug Administration jointly stopped stem cell clinical research and application projects, many non-qualified medical institutions and companies went out of business, a new industrial chain of competent companies has developed, with a growth rate of 50 % per year. At present 143 domestic stem cell related enterprises are located mainly in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Shandong. In Jiangsu Province, Taizhou’s China Medical City hosts the national stem cell industrialization project. In addition, Wuxi has an International Stem Cell Joint Research Center with the UK, and Shandong offers the Qingdao stem cell industrialization base. Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Sichuan and seven other provinces (municipalities) hold a national license of umbilical cord blood stem cell banks. By 2020, China’s stem cell industry market is expected to reach nearly 150 billion yuan.

China Bio news release, October 9, 2017