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No.324

 
 
 


CHINA  SCIENCE  AND  TECHNOLOGY
NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of Science and Technology
People's Republic of China


N0.324 March 10,2003
 
IN THIS ISSUE

* A Strong Call for Biotechnology

* China's Vigorous S&T Development

* China Develops Key Genetic Functions

* China's First Digital Woman

* China's Advanced Satellite Measuring

* China's 10MW Air Cooling Reactor

* China Launches Its Moon Project

 
 SPECIAL ISSUES

A Strong Call for Biotechnology

Tqdhanks to its two-decade development, the overall level of China's biotechnology has reached the leading position among the developing nations, contributing greatly to the nation's economic construction and social development.

Biotechnology in the field of medicine has played an increasingly important role in improving people's life expectancy and health. As a result, China's per capita life span has risen from 35 years in 1949 to 70.8 years in 1996, which has shown the strength of biotechnology. Recent years have witnessed apparently accelerated development of biotechnology in the field of medicine, with more than 150 biotech medicinal products entering clinic studies and 21 biomedicines such as genetic engineering interferon being put into mass production. In 2000, China's biomedical products claiming a sale revenue as high as more than RMB 20 billion, having landed a 100 -time growth in a period of 14 years.

Biotechnology also found abundant applications in agriculture, which made a great contribution to improving the yield and quality of agricultural produces and increasing farmers' income.  The hybrid rice invented by China has been diffused to 20 and more other countries with an increased grain output of 350 billion kilos on a cumulative basis. Journal Science published a paper saying that China's hybrid rice has filled Asian people's rice bow. On the said basis, China's super hybrid rice study has landed its new breakthrough by hitting the target of 12 tons per hectare, which has for the first time realized the yield target for the so-called super rice. China is also the second country in the world that possesses the proprietary transgenic cotton of pests resistance. In 2002, the new cotton species over 40% of the total cotton growing areas in the country. In the last five years, these biotechnologies have increased farmers' income by RMB 5 billion.

Biotechnology has also found its extensive applications in the fields of energy, environment and industry with remarkable results achieved in developing renewable and clean energy. For example, the technology using grains such as corn to produce fuel alcohol has been diffused to Henan and Heilongjiang provinces with an annual capacity for several dozen tons. Ethanol gas technology has found diffusions in some areas. An industrial enterprise with a daily capacity for 20 tons of bio-diesel was established in Sichuan in 2002, which has filled up a blank in bio-diesel industrialization in the country. In addition, China has completed its pilot study of biohydrogen making, the first of its kind in the world.

China's basic studies in the field of biotechnology also enjoyed successive breakthroughs and laid a fine foundation for biotech innovations and associated industrial process. Being the only developing nation that participated in the international human genome project, China has completed its due of 1% gene sequencing mission. In addition, Chinese scientists independently completed the working charts of genetic sequencing for the hybrid rice of 9311 Chinese rice. Chinese scientists have also for the first time in the world positioned and cloned the genes causing some genetic diseases such as high frequency nerve deafness, opalescent tooth II and sweat bore keratosis.

Up to date, there are about 500 modern biotech businesses in China with a population over 50,000, of which 300 and more enterprises are related to medical biotech applications. 20 and more biotech parks have been established in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen which have turned out a great number of new biotech businesses that are playing leading roles in China's biotech development.

China's Vigorous S&T Development

Xu Guanhua, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology disclosed at the press conference sponsored by the News Office of the Chinese State Council recently that in the last five years, China had achieved historic breakthroughs in its S&T input with remarkably improved working environment and conditions for S&T activities. The state treasury has made a cumulative input of RMB 267 billion in the nation's S&T activities, or doubling the figure recorded five years ago. The nation's R&D budget went up greatly from RMB 50.9 billion to 104.3 billion with its weight in GDP rising from 0.64% to 1.1%, materializing a historic breakthrough.

Xu expressed that China's high tech industrialization has witnessed remarkable achievements and has become an important component in promoting the economic restructuring. In the past five years, the Chinese government applauded major progresses in the fields of the construction of national high tech parks, S&T businesses incubators, pioneering parks for returned overseas Chinese graduates, S&T parks and professional incubators on software, integrated circuit design, biotechnology, electro-optic technology and new materials.

China has established its preliminary supporting and service system for high tech industrialization mainly made up of industrial enterprises, S&T research institutions and universities. Now China has 460 S&T incubators for different industrial sectors, ranked the number 2 in the world, with 15,000 businesses under incubating process and 4000 and more having come out from their incubation. In addition, China has established 865 productivity promotion centers and nearly 80,000 S&T service businesses, which created 480,000 job oppotunities.

China Develops Key Genetic Functions

Li Xueyong, Chinese Deputy Minister of Science and Technology expressed at the Forum on Life Sciences in the New Century held on Feb. 18, 2003 that in the next 5 to 10 years, China would give priority support to its basic biology studies and strive for breakthroughs in some key technologies related to functional genome.

Referring to China's basic policies on developing biotechnology and associated industry, Mr. Li said that China would strengthen its research and development, advocating for vigorous but steady industrial process and ensuring the safety of bio-products so as to improve people's health and their diet composition while addressing the demand of ecological environment for biotechnologies. He also added that the development of these priority fields and key technologies would further enhance China's S&T originality and innovation capacity and make biotech industry one of China's new economic growth points and industrial pillars.

China is one of the countries in the world enjoying the richest biological resources and diversities. As is shown by the incomplete statistics, China possesses 260,000 and more animal, plant and microbe species, of which plants come to 30,000, animals 200,000 and microbes 30,000. China now has established nearly 200 key biotech labs financed by the state, the goveromental agencies or local government with a population of technology and product researchers over 20,000. Many Chinese universities have majors or courses on life sciences and biotechnology.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
 

China's First Digital Woman

China's first digital woman recently made its debut at No. I  Military Medical School, which marked China's eventual possession of its proprietary visual digital human platform after mastering the key technologies of digital human making. The said development has created conditions for developing related application software and future international cooperation and competition in the field.

Chinese scientists have developed a number of key equipment and techniques such as a cutting tool with a high accuracy to 0.1 mm, and vertical freezing, embedding and cutting techniques, which have made the maintaining and demonstration of the shape and position of human organs as thoroughly as possible and avoided data losses caused by repeated loading. In the meantime, Chinese scientists developed the new techniques for collecting human sectional images, realized automated consecutive cutting and image collection, the obtained data's geometric color correction and high fidelity. Chinese researchers also applied blood vessel forming techniques in the construction of digital human database, a solution that was found only by Chinese scientists in addressing the internationally unsolved difficulty of blood vessel displaying. The digital woman database set up so far has collected altogether 8,556 slices with only 0.2 mm for their sections.

It is briefed that the first digital woman database has found its application in domestic research institutions.

China's Advanced  Satellite Measuring

Chinese scientists have for the first time equipped Shenzhou IV orbiter with a laser transmitter, which successfully completed its accurate laser ranging mission. It is briefed that the laser device measuring the spacecraft orbit as high as several hundred kilometers only produces an error about 1 centimeter.

Composed of 9 laser rear reflectors of a diameter of 30mm, the laser reflector developed by Shanghai Observatory was installed at the bottom of Shenzhou IV orbiter. Each laser reflector is a four-side prism with its three sides vertically parallel against each other. The pulse laser transmitted from the ground will reflect successively through three right angels, the outgoing light running parallel with the incoming one but in adverse directions, which makes the ground laser station able to detect the laser echoes reflected from the satellite, accurately measuring the time interval between laser pulse round trips and deducting the accurate range of satellite.

After the launch of Shenzhou IV spacecraft, Sheshan Laser Station of Shanghai Observatory and Changchun Satellite Observation Station of the National Observatory, both under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Fangshan Laser Station of the State Measuring and Mapping Bureau, and Wuhan Jiufeng Laser Station sponsored by both the Seismology Institute of the State Seismological Bureau and the Institute of Measuring and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences made their 3-day consecutive observation of the onboard laser transmitters. The observational results have shown that the onboard laser reflectors got succeeded in accurate laser ranging, which indicates that China's laser satellite ranging technique has reached the internationally advanced level.

China is Doing Well  on Crop Genome

Thanks to its one decade long efforts, the National Key Lab on Crop Genetic Improvement under Huazhong Agriculture University has applauded for its major progresses on crop genome study. The Lab has created a systematic technical platform for crop genome and genetic breeding in line with the latest international developments in the field. Up to date, it has established a number of new and definite study topics such as on genome charts, major genes positioning and associated separation and cloning, functional genes, male infertility and hybrid strength, seeds resources innovation and the new techniques for screening new varieties. Some of the Lab's findings and results have reached the internationally advanced or leading level. It is briefed that these findings will be of profound implications for crops' genetic improvement and create valuable opportunities for the improvement of most crop species and their quality improvement.

China's Remote Sensing Data Processing Software

The Institute of Geography and Resources Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently made the debut of China's first MODISoft, a medium resolution data processing application software of numerous merits such as comprehensiveness, practicality, series and interfacing. The successful development of the said software has made China in the world-advanced rank with its series proprietary multi-functional software.

The study of ground ecological system is a key component of resources environment study and its quantitative study has become more and more dependent on the accumulation and analysis of the long-term consecutive observational data. The MODISoft software jointly developed by the Institute and Beijing Digital Space R&D Center is able to work on 17 of 22 atmosphere and land related modules issued by NASA's standard products. The software has demonstrated strong international market competitiveness in terms of function designing and processing results of some of its modules. The product now has been registered for its copyright.

NEWS BRIEFS

 

China's 10MW Air Cooling Reactor

On the basis becoming part of the power grid on January 7th, 2003, the 10 MW high temperature air cooling reactor developed by the Institute of Nuclear Energy Design under Tsinghua University has recently realized a full load running for 72 consecutive hours and become the world first module based spherical high temperature air cooling reactor in operation.

In the decade long course of its painstaking development of the said reactor, the Institute has successfully developed the techniques for manufacturing the component of covered spherical fuel elements of the world advanced level, the domestically first key helium equipment and other series of technical innovation results. So far China has mastered all the technologies and techniques necessary for designing, constructing and running the said advanced nuclear system and laid a foundation for its future industrialization.

China Launches Its Moon Project

Chinese National Space Agency announced recently that China would kick off its “Chang'e” moon project in 2003. At present, Chinese scientists are working on the evaluation part of the project, associated key technological development and the establishment of the project.

Chang'e moon project will be implemented in three phases: circling, landing and returning. Phase I project is expected to complete the following missions: acquiring the 3-D image of the moon surface, analyzing the distributions of useful elements on the moon surface, their concentration and matter types, exploring the moon soil depth and exploring the space environment around the moon.

Chinese moon scientists briefed that at the Phase

I stage China would launch its moon satellite that would fly around the moon, conducting remote sounding activities. At the Phase II stage China's moon walker would materialize its soft landing on the moon. When coming to Phase III, China's moon walker would not only be able to land on the moon but also able to return to the earth safe and sound.

China's Woman Scientist Won the UNESCO Award

Not long ago, UNESCO-L'Oreal World  Outstanding Women's Scientists Award conferring ceremony was held at UNESCO headquarters. Prof. Li Fanghua, a Chinese woman scientist of the Physics Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the winners of the Award.

Jointly sponsored and founded five years ago by French L'Oreal Company and UNESCO, UNESCO-L'Oreal World Outstanding Women's Scientists Award is currently the world only award in honor of women scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the field of basic studies such as biology, physics and chemistry. This year is its fifth conference.

Each winner of the Award is granted with a bonus of USD 100,000. While continuously running the Award each year, the French L'Oreal also established a Women Scientists Program with UNESCO, which provides a subsidy worth USD 20,000 for each winner to improve their working environment, appreciate their outstanding contributions and encourage young women scientists to be part of the major S&T programs and those S&T activities of great perspectives. This year has witnessed 71 women scientists from 45 countries becoming the recipients under UNESCO L'Oreal - Women Scientists Program.


       Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Cheng Jiayi, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China  Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594

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