Life science research needs to be strengthened

Scientific information: "give away" and spend a lot of money to buy back

"The core technologies of life science are extremely diverse. Overall, it can be divided into four categories, namely, information, high-end equipment, consumables, and experimental animals." Wang Xiaoning, secretary general of the China Association for Science and Technology Life Science Association, said that in the field of life sciences, these "stuck neck" core technologies, although it will not lead to "one thing stuck, the rest are doomed" situation, but these four areas are highly dependent on foreign countries, "once the supply is broken, it will lead to the collapse of the entire industrial chain or dimensional-reduction development."

Among them, the scientific information resource is the focus of the international strategic game, and the excessive dependence on foreign countries in this field not only causes huge economic waste, but also brings uncontrollable risks. "China is now the largest provider of raw data and the largest buyer of data." "Wang Xiaoning said.

At present, China's practitioners in the field of life sciences, the growth rate of funding, the number of patents, the number of papers, and the growth rate of international journals rank first in the world, and such rapid development has brought about a "blowout" of innovation achievements. However, international journals are still the first place where these innovations go. Publishing results in international journals requires a publication fee, but when domestic researchers need to use the data, they have to provide a purchase fee to foreign institutions. In between, the amount of publishing fees and data procurement fees generated is staggering. "Our research found that the annual layout fee amounted to hundreds of millions to billions of yuan; In 2019, four universities in the Shanghai area had procurement funds of more than 30 million yuan, and the highest was 60.1 million yuan." Wang Xiaoning was bitterly grieved.

What is more worrying is that publishing papers in foreign journals, but also to surrender their key data to others, losing the original data advantage. "Most scientific papers are published in foreign journals, and supporting data must be submitted. This not only causes biological information to be 'exported to domestic sales', which consumes a huge amount of funds, but also causes the' outflow 'of scientific data to be serious, making our data advantages handed over to developed countries." Wang Xiaoning analysis said.

The reason for this is that our country lacks an influential database of scientific information. This makes China's life science research work highly dependent on overseas data, 55% of the world's annual 1.1PB international biological data downloads are from China, state-level gene databases, cell virus strains and genetic information involved also rely on foreign countries.

"This field is highly dependent on foreign countries, and if the supply is cut off, it will lead to the stagnation of scientific research. If the information is not provided, we will return to the research situation before the 1980s." "Wang Xiaoning said.

In addition to a high degree of dependence on foreign countries, China in the field of scientific information there are still unclear use rights policy, lack of sharing management norms, lack of domestic sharing management norms, subject to international standards and rules. The implementation of industry code of conduct and system is not in place, and there are problems such as the abuse of biological information and the risk of privacy information disclosure. At the same time, "the level of commercial development of biological information in China is low, which is at least 30 years behind the international frontier level." "Wang Xiaoning said.

Scientific equipment and consumables: Small medicine bottles also have the risk of "stuck neck"

At present, China's biomedicine covers chemical drugs, traditional Chinese medicine, biotechnology drugs, medical devices, with the most perfect industrial system, new drug research and development has been developed from imitation to original, and gradually to the world. China also has the most complete large-scale vaccine research and development and production system. Sinopharm's production capacity of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine alone has reached 3 billion doses, and the global supply has exceeded 100 million doses, covering more than 190 countries.

However, it needs to be noted that China is highly dependent on foreign countries in terms of high-end equipment and consumables. Recently, the blue book of "Technological Research Results in the Field of Life Sciences" issued by the Life Science Society of China Association for Science and Technology shows that China's current dependence on high-end life science instruments and equipment is 100%, the annual payment amount exceeds 100 billion, and domestic equipment lacks competitiveness. For example, cryo-electron microscopy, which can observe protein molecules, has greatly promoted the development of life sciences in recent years, but such equipment is completely dependent on imports in China.