China in the world life science pattern

1 Life Science century development Trend Overview: 3 "50 years"

In the history of life science over the past 150 years, landmark breakthroughs have occurred about once every half century (Figure 1) and formed three stages of development. In the mid-19th century, Mendel discovered the basic laws of genetics through the experiment of planting peas and proposed the hypothesis of genetic factors (1865). Later, Morgan located genetic factors in chromosomes through the study of fruit flies (1910), and they jointly laid the foundation for classical genetics, which is the first stage. In the middle of the 20th century, Watson and Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA (1953), ushering in the era of molecular genetics and molecular biology, the second phase. During this time, he discovered the genetic code of life and the central law of DNA-RNA-protein life science, and gave birth to genetic biotechnology for the benefit of mankind. At the turn of the 20th century and the 21st century, with the implementation and completion of the "Human Genome Project", life science entered the era of omics and systems biology, opening the third stage. A large number of complex life processes and disease mechanisms have been clarified, genome sequencing, synthesis and editing, as well as the combination with artificial intelligence, is writing a new chapter of the genome "read - edit - write", scientists began to write synthetic life and accurately regulate life processes.

The above three stages are also interlinked three rounds of life science revolution, which is marked by profound changes in the research paradigm of life science, from the observation and description of biological epigenetic traits and inheritance to the molecular biological characterization and correlation of life processes, and then to the application of systems biology characterized by omics, which has widely influenced all fields of life science research. It has led the comprehensive progress of medicine, agricultural biology and other fields and their technologies, and has greatly contributed to human health and economic and social development.

2 Characteristics of contemporary life sciences

Driven by the new scientific and technological revolution, life science presents the following five characteristics.

(1) Original discoveries emerge in an endless stream, while underlying innovations erupt. Molecular cell biology has penetrated into the entire discipline system of life science, and has become the foundation and pillar of all basic and applied disciplines of life science, promoting endless original discoveries and underlying innovations. For example, powerful gene editing techniques [1, 2] stem from the discovery of CRISPR, an adaptive immune molecular mechanism by which microbes and archaea evolved to deal with viral (phage) infections [3, 4]; The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology that changed the face of molecular biology was derived from the discovery of heat-resistant DNA polymerase in extremophile cells [5], the discovery of immune checkpoints (CTLA-4 and PD-1) [6, 7], and cellular immunology research, which led to the rapid development of tumor targeted immunotherapy [8-10]. Is upending the traditional cancer treatment model; The discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism [11] initiated the treatment route of gene silencing in genetic diseases. apoptosis [12], pyroptosis [13], programmed necroptosis [14], authophagy [15], ferroptosis [16], and cell component transformation (tra) nsition [17] and other phenomena were discovered, which described various ingenious self-regulation mechanisms of cells in physiological and pathological processes, and derived new strategies for the treatment of major diseases.

(2) Both system theory and reductionism reveal complex life processes layer by layer. Molecular biology has successfully annotated a large number of functional genes, and linked many life processes and disease pathogenesis with related functional genes and transcription and expression products. If we call this "reductionism", bioomics composed of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics is a systematic understanding of complex life network systems. The combination of "bottom-up" and "top-down" has greatly improved the opportunities for discovery in life science, and spawned one new research direction and frontier hot spots. For example, integrating genomics, the basis of disease molecular biology and clinical data, combining precision medicine with personalized therapy [18-20]; Human microbiome and metabolome have been found to be closely related to health and many diseases [21, 22]. "Intestinal microbiome and metabolome also provide a new perspective to explain the principles of traditional Chinese medicine" (1). Through genomics and transcriptome studies and gene function annotation, it is found that only 2% of the genome codes for proteins, and the remaining 98% whose function is unknown is likened to the "dark matter" in the genome [23]. Among them, a large number of non-coding Rnas were found to play a key role in the spatiotemporal regulation of cellular networks [24], which "opens up a whole new field of biology... It has unlimited potential in future follow-up studies "[25].