Ten major advances in China's life sciences in 2022 were announced

Life is like a "book" full of mysteries, and the revelation of its new mysteries is the goal of life science research, which can promote the development of new technologies, new medical breakthroughs and the development of the bioeconomy. The China Association for Science and Technology Life Science Association announced the top 10 advances in China's life sciences in 2022 on Monday. Ten original and socially significant scientific achievements were selected, focusing on how the Omicron strain of the novel coronavirus achieves immune escape in the human body; Global warming, how can rice resist high temperature, not yield reduction; The new progress in the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes and other diseases is oriented to people's life and health and the hot issues of scientific research in the world, and the decoding of the "book of life" will be further promoted.

Solve hot issues such as COVID-19 immune escape, rice resistance to high temperature, and understanding cells

The continuous mutation of the Omicron strain of the new coronavirus has caused multiple rounds of outbreaks around the world, which is a hot issue that everyone is concerned about at present. At present, the analysis of the humoral immune escape mechanism of COVID-19 mutants is very important for the development of broad-spectrum COVID-19 vaccines and antibody drugs. Among the ten advances announced this time, Xie Xiaoliang and Cao Yunlong's team from Peking University, together with Wang Xiangxi's team from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wang Youchun's team from the China National Institute of Food and Drug Control, have improved the scientific understanding of the world's novel coronavirus prevention and control.

They were the first to report the humoral immune escape characteristics and molecular mechanisms of novel coronavirus Omicron and its subtype variants. For the first time, the structural and infective characteristics of several mutant strains were analyzed, and the full epitope distribution and escape map of COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies were described in detail.

Rice is one of the main grains in our country, and the research on rice has always attracted much attention. With global warming, extreme high temperature weather will greatly reduce rice production and exacerbate food security problems. The team led by Lin Hongxuan from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Lin Youshun from Shanghai Jiao Tong University have jointly revealed a new mechanism of rice high-temperature resistance, and excavated rice high-temperature resistance genes, which provide precious genetic resources for crop high-temperature resistance breeding, and help to solve the current urgent problem of breeding heat-resistant crop varieties.

Chinese scientists' research on small cells can attract more than 190 scientific research teams from 25 countries to participate? Yes, this is the research of Wang Jian and Xu Xun's team from the Institute of Life Sciences of the University of China. Based on autonomous DNA nanosphere sequencing technology, they developed high-precision large-field spatial transcriptome technology, which promoted the resolution of understanding life to the sub-cellular level of 500nm, which increased the resolution by 200 times and the field of view size by 483 times compared with similar technologies in the past. Together with a number of domestic scientific research teams, they also drew the highest precision and most comprehensive spatio-temporal gene expression data set of important model organisms such as mice, fruit flies, zebrafish, Arabidopsis and salamander for the first time in the world, and discovered new cell types that play a key regulatory role in the process, which caused a warm international response.

Bring good news to patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and diabetes

The study and treatment of diseases has always been the focus of life science research. Among the ten advances announced this time, a number of studies focused on the treatment of cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, diabetes and other diseases, bringing good news to these patients.

There are 330 million patients with cardiovascular disease in China, and excessive cholesterol in the blood is the main risk factor. Although existing lipid-lowering drugs can reduce lipids to different degrees, they have certain side effects and limitations. Cholesterol is difficult to be degraded in the body, so discovering how to expel cholesterol to the body is of great significance for the development of new lipid-lowering drugs. The team of Song Baoliang, Taikang Life Medical Center of Wuhan University, found that after the loss of glycoprotein receptor ASGR1, cholesterol is excreted into the bile and further left the body through the stool. The findings indicate the direction for the development of new lipid-lowering drugs that promote cholesterol efflux.

In the treatment of cerebrovascular diseases, high recurrence is a global problem in the prevention and treatment of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases, but the effect of aspirin single antiplatelet therapy recommended by national guidelines is limited, and clinical studies of combined antiplatelet therapy with other drugs have failed due to ineffective or increased risk of serious bleeding, so combined therapy has been banned for ischemic cerebrovascular diseases by international guidelines. Wang Yongjun's team of Beijing Tiantan Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University proposed for the first time in the world the short-range double-channel double-effect combination treatment program of aspirin plus clopidogrel, which rewrote the guidelines of many countries such as Europe and the United States. The program can reduce the risk of recurrence by 23%, and is evaluated as opening a new era of gene-guided treatment of cerebrovascular disease.