China's Top Ten Medical Developments
Under the joint initiatives of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Health under the General Logistics Administration of the People's Liberation Army, the State Food and Drug Administration, State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Chinese Association for Science, Chinese Medical Association and Health Daily, China's top ten medical developments were unveiled recently as following:
1) In the Spring of 2003, SARS went rampant in China. The SARS Prevention and Treatment Commanding Center under the State Council had successfully organized research institutes, medical institutions and industrial businesses in the country to jointly curb the spread of the SARS epidemic and achieved encouraging progresses in SARS pathogenesis, clinic diagnosis, combined traditional and western treatment, serum treatment, animal modeling, vaccination and biological protection devices.
2) Chinese medical scientists have achieved series results in selecting astronauts, space environment adaptability training, psychological training, medical support and tracking for astronauts' health, and providing the strong medical support for China's maiden manned spacecraft flight.
3) China has made major progresses in the study of disease related genes with the relevant findings being published in the authoritative international journals or magazines. The research finding on Leptospira worked out by the Southern Research Center of the National Human Genome Project was published in the Nature magazine. The paper on the genes making the family history of the atrial fibrillation by the scientists from the Tongji University was published in the Science magazine. The scientists of Fudan University published their findings on liver cancer metastasis prediction in the journal of Natural Medicines. In addition, the No. 1 Hospital subordinated to the Zhongshan University has captured the key genes causing the Parkinson's disease. The Southern Research Center of the National Human Genome Project sequenced the genetic sections showing different development stages of the schistosoma japonica and published the findings in the journal of Natural Genetics. The researchers of the Institute of Oncology published their series findings on the polymorphism of the genes causing esophagus and lung cancers in the Journal of Cancer.
4) Chinese scientists have achieved remarkable progresses in AIDS disease prevention and treatment. No. 302 Hospital under the Chinese Liberation Army discovered the differences between Chinese Han people and white people in the mutation frequency and polymorphism of HIV resistant genes. The Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully worked out Compound SH, the first traditional medicine in the world for treating AIDS that has passed the strict scientific testing.
5) Two new anti-cancer drugs were granted with the national certificate for class I new drugs. With the help of genetic engineering means, Shenzhen Saibainuo Genetic Technology Co. Ltd. has worked out P53 and gland virus carriers that can be used to treat head and neck cancers. The Biotechnology Center under the No. 4 Military Medical University restructured the cancer putrescence factors and made them clinically available.
6) The International Proteome Program was officially launched. Chinese scientists have been made the leader of the Human Liver Proteome Project with the involvement of 80 and more labs in 18 countries or regions.
7)China has become part of the international coordinated efforts for monitoring cardiovascular diseases, the largest of its kind in the world. The investigation has covered 5 million people in 16 provinces or cities in China and made the data available for the first time on the Chinese population's cardiovascular disease incidence, mortality and long term development trends of dangerous factors.
8) The Shanghai Institute of Neurology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has achieved major progresses in its neurological studies. The findings such as the possible relationship between cerebral gliocyte and learning and memory, cerebral identification mode for visual signals, the expression spectrum of pain related genes and neurotransmitter's propagation and neurodevelopment control have been published in the world renowned academic journals in the field.
9) Two traditional medicines were granted with the national certificate for new drugs. The Tongji Hospital subordinated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology has found the substitutes for the natural bezoar. The Chinese Institute of Drug and Biological Products Testing and others have jointly worked out the artificial tiger bone powder to replace the natural one.
10) Chinese military field medical equipment has realized the leaping development by equipping the Chinese peacekeeping forces under the UN banner with nine major field medical systems such as the field rescue system, field mobile medical unit, individual field first aid kit among many others.
More Forested Area
As shown by the latest statistics published by the State Forestry Bureau, the afforestation campaign for 2003 has added 160.5 million more mu (1mu=0.0667ha.) of forested area, which made the forest coverage 1% of the nation's total territories for the first time.
Mr. ZHOU Shengxian, Administrator of Forestry expressed that the central government had greatly increased the investment in forestry by 26% at RMB 42.9 billion compared with 2003. Of the investment, RMB 34.7 billion were directly spent on the natural forest protection, forested areas reclamation, wind and sand control over Beijing and Tianjin areas, phase IV wind break project for three northern areas, the construction of forest break in major areas along the Yangtze River basin, wild life and plant protection and the construction of nature conservation zones, and the construction of fast timber growth bases in selected areas. The said investment has provided the strong funding support for the fast growth of the forestry industry.
Since the implementation of the above mentioned six major forestry projects, the ecological construction in the country has witnessed remarkable improvements. For examples, the natural forest protection project has reduced the consumption of forest resources by 320 million cubic meters of timber; the forested area reclamation campaign has made 227 million mu of land the wooded areas, which in turn benefited 97 million farmers; the wind break project for three northern areas has made an afforestation of 23.5 million hectares; the wind and sand control project for Beijing and Tianjin areas has completed one fourth of the targeted missions; now the area of nature conservation zones has been expanded to 13.2% of the nation's total territories with the increasingly matured reproduction and breeding techniques for endangered animals such as ibis, panda and south China tiger; and the fast growing timer project has added 10 million and more mu to the fast timber growing bases in 2003.
Special Prize Added
The recently revised Regulations on National S&T Awarding has been added with a clear provision that the National Natural Science Award, National Technology Invention Award and National S&T Advancement Award shall be seated in the first prize and second prize. And the special prize can be awarded to the citizens who have made the special important scientific discoveries or technical inventions, or to the citizens and organizations who have completed the scientific projects, programs or topics of extremely important significance. The previous version of the Regulations had only defined the first and second prizes for the three national S&T awards without the special prize.
The revised Regulations on National S&T Awarding is made of 26 articles in 5 chapters.
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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION |
China-US Energy Efficiency Demonstration
China-US energy efficiency demonstration building called the completion in Beijing on January 12, 2004. Mr. XU Guanhua, Chinese Minster of Science and Technology and Mr. Spencer Abraham, US Secretary of Energy were present at the ceremony to celebrate the completion of the energy efficiency demonstration project jointly initiated and constructed by the both countries.
Being a structure integrated with both office rooms and the section for energy efficiency demonstration over a floor space of 13,000 m2, the new building has a designed energy consumption 60% less than that of conventional office buildings in the country. The new building is China's first “green” building in line with the internationally acknowledged energy efficiency criteria.
Mr. XU, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. FAN Boyuan, Deputy Mayor of Beijing Municipality and Mr. Spencer Abraham, US Secretary of Energy jointly signed on the same day the Protocol on the Cooperation in the Filed of Clean Energy Technology for the Beijing Olympic Game in 2008 in the new building. It is reported that the Protocol has laid up a basic framework for the cooperation between the two countries in clean energy technology for the Beijing Olympic Game in 2008. The cooperation will make its due contribution to realizing the motto proposed by the Beijing Olympic Game Committee for the “green, scientific and humanitarian Olympic Game” in 2008. The both sides have so far defined 11 cooperation fields relating to the efficient natural gas utilization, fuel batteries, energy planning for the Olympic village, green structure demonstration, water quality, intelligent traffic system, energy efficiency, air quality, weather monitoring and forecasting, clean coal technology and making Beijing and Chicago sister cities for the sustainable development.
Probe-I Saw Strange Space Phenomena
Probe-I, the satellite jointly launched by China and the European Space Agency started to send date back to the earth from January 3, 2004. Upon the analysis of the date sent back by the satellite, scientists have found that Probe-I has observed a strange space phenomenon.
It is briefed that the onboard high energy electronic sounding device has observed something telling the distribution pattern of space high energy electrons in the orbit, a phenomenon unknown before. The satellite data has shown that electrons are evenly distributed when the satellite is farther away from the earth, while the same distribution pattern may change in different directions when the satellite gets closer to the earth, stronger in some directions while weaker in others.
Probe-I Work Smoothly
As shown by the data received by the XI'an Satellite Control Center, Probe-I, the first satellite in the dual-satellite space probing program under the cooperation between China and European Space Agency has been running smoothly in the orbit with all onboard equipment working properly.
To track and operate the satellite, China has realized for the first time an extended tracking and control range over 70,000 km. Before this, China had never tracked and controlled a satellite exceeding 40,000 km. Probe-I has an apogee distance as far as 78,051 km, almost twice that of the regular earth synchronous satellite.
It is reported that Probe-I is the farthest satellite so far China has launched. The new satellite is missioned to observe the temporal and spatial variations of the magnetic fields and particles near the equator, and analyze the occurrences and development of near earth disturbance activities caused by the solar activities.
8 More Key National Lab to be Built
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) had from September to November 2003 organized the experts concerned to conduct the feasibility study of establishing 8 new national key labs. The expert team, through the in-depth review and study, came up to the conclusion that the 8 new national key labs proposed to be built have clearly defined targets with feasible implementation details on the ground. The MOST, based on the assessment results made by the experts, has approved the construction plans for the new labs. The new labs will mainly serve for the research efforts in the following fields: soil and sustainable agricultural development, botanic genome, remote sensing, water resources and hydraulic power engineering, agro-microbiology, trauma, burns and compound injuries, rice biology and seismological dynamics.
It is reported that having been kicked off in December 2003, the construction of the new labs will see the completion in December 2004 during which the MOST will organize the experts' verification and acceptance check for the project. During the period of construction, the new labs are requested to further refine their research targets and achieve the expected improvements in teaming up the research personnel resources, establishing research platforms and consolidating the operational management. In addition, the new labs are planned to become important bases for high level scientific studies, rendezvous for talented scientists and academic exchanges at the national level.
China's Largest Experimental Device
The Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced on January 8, 2004 that the upgrading project of the Beijing Positron and Electron Collider, the largest scientific experimental facility in the country has entered the full fledged construction phase.
With a planned total budget of RMB 640 million and the reconstruction period for 5 years, the old collider will be upgraded with the most internationally advanced dual loop colliding technology. The upgrading will make one more storage ring available for the collider so as to allow positron and electron move in their respective storage ring though hitting each other in the colliding zone. As a result, the number of positron and electron colliding will increase from 1 pair under the current single ring system to 97 pairs in an upgraded environment. Together with other advanced technologies, the collider will see an improvement of major parameters by 100 times comparing with the current level. In the meanwhile, scientists will fully upgrade the Beijing spectrometer so as to make it more accurate with less systematic errors, capable for the new required performance.
China's Findings in Top Ten Physics Developments
The Top Ten Evolutions in 2003 World Physics unveiled recently by the European Physical Society has listed the paper on experimental realization of freely propagating teleported qubits by Prof. Pan Jianwei of the Chinese University of Science and Technology.
Prof. Pan and his colleagues had found in the study that qubits could be successfully propagated without violating the propagating condition if the luminance of qubits was duly reduced. It is believed that the finding, if combined with other techniques, may not only find the fundamental solution to the technical difficulty encountered in the current long distance quanta telecommunication, but will also greatly stimulate the experimental study of quanta computation.
New Materials for New ID Card
Jiangsu based Huaxin Plastics Co. Ltd. has recently worked out the base materials for the new generation ID cards in the country. China's second generation ID card is made of the environment friendly material called PETG. Unlike the material for making the first generation ID cards, PETG is a material that can be recycled, causing no pollution to the environment. In addition, the new material is, after applied with the new recipe and control technology, easy for printing with strong thermal stability, fake proof capability, and friction, erosion and static resistance.
It is reported that China's ID card changing will be kicked off fully at the end of 2004 and about 1 billion old ID cards will be changed for new by the end of 2008.
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)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594
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