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N0.404

 

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

N0.404

May 30,2005

 

 

 

 

 
IN THIS ISSUE


 

* Genetic On-Off Switch Map

* China Prepares for ITER

* China-Russia-CIS S&T Base

* Phase-III Super Rice

 

* Deepwater Oil Engineering Forum


 

 INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

 

 

 

 

 

Genetic On-Off Switch Map

 

A research team headed by REN Bing, a Chinese associated professor working at University of California, San Diego, reported in the recent issue of journal Nature their findings on genome promoters of human fibroblast. The findings, published in a form of distribution chart, will deepen scientists’ understanding and utilization of human genome information, and create innovative approaches for diseases studies.

 

REN and his team defined through experiments some 10,500 effective promoters in human fibroblasts. They also discovered that these promoters are matched with 6,763 known genes, and with at least 1,196 unknown transcription processes.  Many genes need more than one promoter to control their expression. In addition, these promoters are mostly found congregated in genome. Researchers grouped promoters into four major categories, according to their transcription control modes.

 

“The study only marks the first step, which proves our analytic method effective. We will use the same approach to study promoter distributions of other cells”, said REN. He added that after the human genome project, the distribution of genetic on-off switches becomes a very important topic. It will take a workload equal to, or even heavier than the genome project, if scientists attempt to work out genetic on-off switch maps for all human cellular types.

 

China Prepares for ITER

 

A ministerial meeting on International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) was recently held in Moscow. Representatives from China, Russia, the EU, Japan, the United States, and Korea discussed site selection issues, and reached a consensus to build the ITER at Cadarache in France. Six parties also inked a joint statement. XU Guanhua, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology said at the meeting that ITER constitutes a major multilateral S&T project. It will not only promote S&T cooperation in the field of fusion energy, but will also address key S&T issues in the research process. Involvement in large international S&T cooperation activities will help China to raise its S&T level, allowing China to make its contributions to the advancement of science and technology. Now that ITER has found its proper site, China is willing to work together with other countries to facilitate ITER negotiation process, striving for an early consensus on specific issues, and getting prepared for the implementation of ITER project.

According to plan, ITER will start its 10-year construction in 2006. With an investment of USD 4.6 billion, the project makes a largest international scientific project following the International Space Station project.

China-Russia-CIS S&T Base

 

A Changchun China-Russia-CIS S&T Cooperation Center recently made its official inauguration in Changchun. LIU Yanhua, Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology attended the inauguration ceremony. The establishment of the center, the only of its kind approved by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology for S&T cooperation between China, Russia, and Commonwealth of Independent States, marks a substantive phase for S&T cooperation among these countries.

Under the co-sponsorship of Changchun Municipal S&T Bureau, Changchun High-tech Park, Changchun Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jilin University, and Changchun Polytechnic University, the S&T cooperation center was founded on August 2000. With a planned area of 100,000 m2, the center mainly works on collaborative activities in three key international cutting edge areas: optic-machinery-electronic integration, new materials, and pharmaceuticals. Under the cooperation framework, China has signed 52 cooperation agreements with Russia, from which derived some 30 S&T businesses, with 27 projects in negotiations. S&T projects relating to stem cells, coronary stents, and laser mask processing, have gone into preliminary commercial applications. 

Anti-SARS Remedies Found

 

At a China-EU annual conference on SARS diagnostics and antivirals, Chinese and European scientists jointly announced that they have found 15 possible anti-SARS remedies that can inhibit the duplication of SARS viruses. The development marks new approaches for producing anti-SARS medicines.

 

The Sino-European Project on SARS Diagnostics and Antivirals (SEPSDA), launched on May 2004 in Germany, is financed by the EU with an amount of Euro 1.9 million. Universities and research institutes from Germany, Denmark, Poland, and China participated in the project. It took more than one year for scientists to have separated 15 remedies that can curb the duplication of SARS viruses. Some of them are screened out using the findings from genome and molecular biology studies, while some others are found from existing medicines. A remedy, named cinanserin that is used to treat schizophrenia from the 1970s, is found effective in protecting normal cells, and in injuring or killing SARS viruses. Artemisinin, a traditional medicine for treating malaria is also proved effective in inhibiting SARS viruses. Finding new applications of existing medicines is particularly valuable, as these medicines have been proved secure and safe through long clinic applications. They can be readily used in patients, once SARS epidemics breaks out.

 

In addition, scientists found two coronaviruses in animals, which are proved to be homologous with SARS viruses using genetic sequence.

 

China-UK Universities Collaborate

 

Not long ago, Xi’an Jiaotong University inked a framework agreement with Coventry University in Shanghai. The agreement includes the following main arrangements:

1)    International exchange activities between S&T Parks. Enterprises at the S&T Park of Xi’an Jiaotong University will be invited to visit the S&T Park of Coventry University, and hold business talks with their UK counterparts. Coventry University will provide services and assistance necessary for the visits and talks.  The S&T Park of Coventry University will be invited to visit the S&T Park of Xi’an Jiaotong University, and hold business talks with their Chinese counterparts. Xi’an Jiaotong University will provide services and assistance necessary for the visits and talks. Exchanges will facilitate S&T businesses to be in line with international developments, and learn advanced management practices. 

2)    Xi’an Jiaotong University and Coventry University will jointly apply for EU projects.

3)Joint MBA courses for knowledge transfer and innovation management. Lecturers at Coventry University will be invited to teach at Xi’an Jiaotong University. Students of Xi’an Jiaotong University will be invited to work at the S&T Park of Coventry University, to widen their horizons and learn successful experience.

NEWS BRIEFS

 

Phase-III Super Rice

 

Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center is collaborating with industry to work on genetic engineering part of hybrid rice, said YUAN Longping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. YUAN wishes to see a yield of 900kg/mu(1mu=0.0667 ha.) produced from the phase-III experiment for super hybrid rice, using the combined strength of both technology and funding.

YUAN said that breakthroughs in hybrid rice breeding have to count on innovations in both strain quality and technology. In the past three decades, conventional breeding potentials have been tapped up to a fullest possible extent. In this context, phase-III hybrid rice has to make through using genetic technology. He added that his collaboration with Beijing Huada Genetic Center has produced the first draft sequence of the rice genome (Oryza sativa L. ssp. Indica). He and his research team are currently working on the functional genome of rice, in an attempt to separate out major genes having hybrid strength and economic values, and apply genetic modification technology in breeding phase-III hybrid rice strains. So far, LONG and his team has landed progresses in breeding pest and disease resistant GM rice strains.

Progress in Wheat Breeding

“Xiaoyan 81”, a novel wheat strain screened out under the chair of LI Zhensheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and expert on wheat breeding, has reported a yield of 565 kg per mu, with a top record at 617 kg. The new strain is fine in quality, with a volumetric weight of 800 grams per liter and a protein content at about 17 percent, or 18.8 percent for top record. Its wet gluten content weighs around 40 percent, or 46 percent at top. In addition to numerous  strong features, including high-yield, fine quality, disease resistance, and cold spell resistance, the new species is also of stout stalks resistant to lodging, and well-developed roots for drought resistance and efficient water and nitrogen fertilizer utilization.

Currently the "Xiaoyan 81" is being regionally compared for winter wheat in Hebei, Shandong and Shaan’xi. It is also tested in Henan Province for possible diffusion. During the period from 2004 to 2005, the novel strain has been grown at a scale of thousand-mu over four counties, including Haocheng, Zhaoxian, Luancheng, and Xingtang, in Hebei Province, with a combined growing area of 6,300 mu. In addition, researchers have grown the species in three hundred-mu sites in Dingzhou and Anguo cities, with a combined growing area of 800 mu. The Province has grown the new strain in 7,100 mu on a cumulative basis.

Digital Homeland

 

During the 11th Five-year Plan period(2006-2010), China will build a database to reflect land utilization activities up to the county level, and realize real-time dynamic monitoring of arable land use, compensation, and law breaking activities, using satellite images and ground surveys, said recently LU Xinshe, Vice Minister of Land and Resources. According to a briefing, China’s satellite based remote sensing technology can clearly tell the existences of arable land, barren mountains, forests or structures at a square meter level, providing accurate land use information for authorities concerned. Information on survey results will be made available on Internet for public screening.

Data published by the China Land Mapping and Planning Institute show that China has surveyed land use activities in 104 major cities, covering a total area of 1.8 million m2 on a combined basis, or 1/5 of the nation’s sovereign land. Surveys collect important data on land activities, especially changes in arable land use, and provide a powerful technical support for land management.

Deepwater Oil Engineering Forum

 

A technical forum on China’s deepwater oil engineering, sponsored by the Resources and Environment Technology Office under the National Hi-Tech Development and Research Program (863 Program), was recently convened in Shanghai. In a move to understand technology development trends of deepwater oil engineering both at home and abroad, and China’s future development strategies and orientations in the field, the forum is held to solicit research proposals on deepwater oil engineering for the 11th Five-year Plan period.

 

Chaired by officials from the Department of Rural and Social development, part of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the forum heard keynote speeches on future development strategies and technical needs in the field of deepwater oil-gas engineering, presented by representatives from China National Offshore Oil Corp., China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., China National Petroleum Corp., and Shanghai Petroleum Corp. Representative from Shanghai Richer S&T Co. Ltd. briefed the meeting the latest domestic and international achievements and progresses in the field. More than 150 representatives exchanged their views and made their proposals on China’s future deepwater oil development in separate group discussions.

 

IGRS Becomes Industry Standard

The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry has recently made an IGRS (Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing) based standard a recommended national criteria for China’s IT industry. The new standard allows limited extension of personal computers and point-to-point connections between office equipment. In addition to equipping information devices with information exchange functions, the standard will eventually make intelligent interconnection, resources sharing and shared services between information terminals possible.  Experts explain that IGRS products can be used in household entertainment, mobile information processing, and easy office activities. Users can easily play computer-stored photos, music and movies on regular TV sets, using an ordinary remote control. They can also directly view broadband contents on TV. TV programs stored in computers can be transmitted to laptop computers, or palm mobile telecommunication equipment, for on-demand viewing. The purported intelligent connection and automatic installation functions allow direct sharing of online and printing resources, without calling for any pre-configurations. The new standard also simplifies connections between laptop computers and projectors or printers.

Home Made HD-TV Chip

Hisense, a Chinese television maker, recently rolled out a high-definition television chip that has passed the verification check organized by the Ministry of Information Industry.  The new system, named Hiview, makes China’s first proprietary commercial chip for audio-video applications. Using internationally advanced 0.18-micron CMOS process, the system is made up of nearly 2 million logic gates and some 7 million transistors. As a super integrated circuit at a million-gate level, Hiview has obtained more than 30 patent grants, of which 9 are invention patents. Having found successful applications in TV manufacturing, the new product is certified for market entry.

Intelligent Wheelchair

 

The Institute of Automation, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Hong Kong based L.K. Group jointly announced that the two parties would work together to develop and produce an innovative intelligent wheelchair, providing intelligent tools for the elders with rigid lower limbers and the disabled.

 

The intelligent wheelchair, developed by YUAN Kui, a research fellow at the Institute of Automation, and others, is of a fine intelligent control capability. The wheelchair can automatically gear down its speed when approaching an obstacle, to avoid possible collision. User also can instruct the wheelchair to come available before him, using a remote control, when it is not at his or her side. Medical workers or patent’s family can manipulate the movement of the wheelchair using remote control within a defined wireless range, and supervise what happens to the patient on a real time basis. With a proven technology, the intelligent wheelchair has entered a phase to work on manufacturing techniques. 


       Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:

Mr. Mao Zhongying, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China  Tel: (8610)58881360 Fax: (8610) 58881364

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