China in Africa

The 227,100 m2 park is planned as a future one-stop whole for life sciences users. Haier Biomedical, through 10 years of innovation, has become China’s largest low-temperature cold chain equipment brand. Its ultra-low temperature refrigerators and other medical low-temperature cold chain storage devices support biological (Biobank) and other life science support projects. The construction of the new industrial park is an important step for Haier into the biomedical industry.

China Bio news release, May 11, 2017

The material is inspired by Gecko bionics and based on an inorganic membrane to which hydrogel nanofibers are added on both sides. The material exhibits ultra-high friction and adhesion in an acidic liquid (pH 2), and switches rapidly to a state of ultra-low friction and stickiness in a basic solution (pH 12). Additionally, the two sides of the material can stick and slide independently of each other.

CAS news release, May 11, 2017

The researchers focused on the visual cortex, the ‘seeing’ part of the brain, which they analyzed through hundreds of fMRI scans of people looking at a single handwritten number or letter, along with the image they were looking at. Using a deep generative multiview model (DGMM) algorithm, they could reconstruct the original images from the fMRI scans.Decoding more complex pictures will need a more sophisticated approach, involving AI for reconstruction.

CAS news release, May 11, 2017

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Language Commission and China’s National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies jointly have announced that elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 were given official Chinese names. The Chinese name of the element 115 – Moscovium – is an existing Chinese character 镆” ( pronounced as mo), but three new Chinese characters were created for the rest. Based on the principle of similar pronunciations, “钅尔” (ni) and  “石田” (tian) were given to element 113, Nihonium, and element 117, Tennessine, respectively. The Chinese symbol of element 118 – Oganesson – will be pronounced “ao”.”

CAS news release, May 11, 2017

One of their plant factories in Anxi, Fujian province, covers 1 ha and supposedly is the largest vertical farming complex in the world. By inventing energy efficient LEDs and recyclable hydroponic solutions, as well as new energy-conserving methods the factory’s overall energy consumption was cut by 25 percent compared with a first facility. San’an Sino-Science was founded in 2015 by the San’an Group and the CAS Institute of Botany. The second-generation plant in Anxi can produce 1.5 tons of vegetables a day, such as lettuce and cabbage. It takes about 20 days for a sapling to reach maturity in the plant factory, but 40 to 60 days in a conventional farm. China has 160 million hectares of farmland dedicated to growing vegetables. To grow them, farmers use more than 311,000 metric tons of pesticide and 59 million tons of fertilizer a year.

CAS news release, May 9, 2017

Since the launch of the precision medical program in China in 2015, the field of gene sequencing has rapidly developed. 11 of the companies are publicly listed. From a detailed analysis of invested money, over 75 % of these companies have received investments between millions and 100 millions of Yuan. As the rate of company formation increased year by year, some experts fear that a “gene sequencing bubble” might eventually develop.

China Bio news release, May 9, 2017

Acording to the ISAAA Southeast Asia Center, transgenic cotton grows on 29 million ha in China, with an application rate of 95% and more than 5 million farmers involved in the plantations. China also has 8,550 hectares of transgenic papaya, and 543 hectares of transgenic poplar. Global acreage of GM crops was 185.1 million ha in 2016.

China Bio news release, May 9, 2017

According to the report, China’s health care products market size was about 120 billion Yuan in 2015 and increased 2.7 times from 2005 (about 45 billion Yuan). The United States and China occupy half of the global health care products market. According to WHO standards, China’s current population defined as healthy is only about 15% of the total population, whereas the proportion population considered “sub-healthy” is as high as 70%. Roland Berger’s 2016 consumer market research shows that women are more concerned about beauty, bowel fat reduction, health during pregnancy and other, whereas men are concerned about liver and kidney health, sports nutrition, etc. The elderly are concerned about bone-related products, sleep, and cardiovascular health products.

https://www.rolandberger.com/en/Publications/pub_mes_study_2017.html

Tea is the world’s most ancient and most widely consumed caffeine soft drinks, the current global more than 160 countries, 3 billion people drink tea tea. It is widely believed that tea originated in China’s Yunnan, Sichuan and other places. Tea trees are commercially grown on more than 3.8 million hectares of land on various continents. In 2014, the world’s tea production was 5.56 million t. Since 2010, an international consortium around Lizhi GAO, CAS Kunming Institute of Botany, has studied Camellia sinensis var. Assamica tea and assembled about 3.02 billion base pairs in a high quality genome reference map, coding for 36,951 proteins. The results show that the expression level of key genes related to tea polyphenols and caffeine biosynthesis in tea plants is significantly higher than that in non-tea plants, and their expression patterns relate to genes for theanine biosynthesis.

CAS Kunming Institute of Botany solves tea genome

A study team led by Xiaodong FANG from Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (AIOFM), Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, and Mingming MA at CAS’ University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), designed and synthesized a series of polyol-polypyrrole (polyol-PPy) composites. Doped with tetra-armed polyethylene glycol (PEE), the PEE-PPy film achieved a tensile strength as high as 125 MPa, and the elongation-at-break was about 75%. The tensile toughness was 73 MJ/m3, similar to natural cocoon silk (70 MJ/m3). Additionally, the PEE-PPy film had a conductivity of 115 S/cm.

CAS news release, May 3, 2017

The app provided by the company is claimed to have a recognition rate of 87 % even for complex Chinese food and predicts „sugar points“ for postprandial blood sugar. It takes into account the amount of a dish, cooking methods, diet patterns and different consumer groups. After input of personal data and analysis of a dish, the app provides personalized advise. Chinese only!

http://www.yesudoo.com/index.html

The group of Yushe YANG has designed and synthesized a siderophore-conjugated monocyclic ß-lactam YT-14 which was very potent, in a phase I clinical study, against multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa, A. baumannii and K. pneumoniae.

CAS news release, May 2, 2017

The team of Jian SUN and Qingjie GE at DICP have prepared an efficient, stable, and multifunctional Na–Fe3O4/HZSM-5 catalyst for the direct production of gasoline from CO2 hydrogenation. This catalyst exhibited 78% selectivity to C5–C11 as well as low CH4 and CO selectivity under industrial relevant conditions. The gasoline fraction was mainly isoparaffins and aromatics thus favouring the octane number. Moreover, the multifunctional catalyst exhibited a remarkable stability for 1,000 h on stream.

CAS news release, May 2, 2017-05-20

According to a spokesman of the Ministry of Science and Technology, by 2020 China will have built 10 to 20 biomedical professional parks with production values of over 10 billion Yuan each, and another 5 to 10 biotechnology industry parks with production values of 10 billion Yuan.

China Bio news release, May 2, 2017

The program was started at Peking University in 2013 and since has cured ofer 5,800 Chinese leukemia patients, based on haploid allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This original treatment program will now be transplanted to Shenzhen University, Department of Hematology, to also benefit Shenzhen leukemia patients.

China Bio news release, May 2, 2017