The latest biological research progress and reviews for 2019.

Standing on the threshold of December, 2019 is about to go back, not give up, look back in order to better move forward.
understanding of biotechnology, most people have either started, or are still stuck in, the Human Genome Project (HGP) to decipher the human genome, and the coming year 2020 is the 30th anniversary of the project's launch.
HGP is the early days when people can explore what really happened to life at the macromolecular level, and 30 years after HGP, people have mastered the "super-ability" of the biotechnology from the "drilling wood to fire" stage, such as sound, light, electricity, magnetism, nuclear, etc.
the book of life, the strange molecules, the organs of a thousand turn, the intricate mechanisms ... First little by little sketch, and then in pieces, the most delicate and wonderful machine roar from speculation, indirect proof to be able to be directly presented in the human field of view.
at the same time, humans gain more and more energy, subtle to a single base, a single functional group of editing, grand to a life of artificial re-creation ... Nevertheless, the academic community gave a "little change" comment. on December 19th,
, at the Heart lecture hall of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China's top medical school, Qiao Jie, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and dean of the Third Hospital of Peking University, said that this year was 25 years since the publication of the journal Nature Medicine, and when invited to express their views on the progress of biotechnology over the past 25 years, scientists said: 25 years is too short, little change; The more you know, the greater the boundary of ignorance.
view from this point of view, the evaluation of the progress of biotechnology is also a philosophical issue.
1, the first human embryo bed-in process that asked life was the first to be parsed that each cell actually had a different genome, even from the same person.
As single-cell sequencing technology matures and is increasingly accurate, scientists are undoubtedly most concerned about the origin of human life, where a fertilized egg "comes from" and "where to go." on August 22,
, the journal Nature published the latest breakthrough in the study by a team of researchers at Peking University, Tang Fuli and Qiao Jie, who used high-precision single-cell sequencing technology to analyze the process of beding human embryos for the first time in human history through in vitro simulation of artificial fertilized eggs.
team elaborated on all single cells in the 6-12-day embryonic cell population, reconstructed the dynamic change process of transcription groups and DNA methylation groups, recreated the "stories" that occurred in the cells during the beding of human embryos, "recorded" for each cell, and pooled the understanding of the initial regulatory network of life. What will happen after 12 days
? Due to ethical constraints, in vitro culture of human embryos should not exceed 14 days, and scientists turned to non-human primates similar to humans for further study.
with the help of the in vitro culture system of non-human primate embryos established over the years by deep cultivation, researchers from the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units pushed the study of fertilized eggs to 20 days after fertilization, and in vitro reproduced the in vitro re-creation of the original intestine movement of non-human primate embryos.
study found that primitive reproductive cells were observed on the 12th-16th day of in vitro culture embryo development, characteristics not previously observed in human embryo in vitro culture.
combined with single-cell transcriptome sequencing analysis, the study provided for the first time the gene expression characteristics of amniotic cells in the early embryonic development of primates and redefined multiple cell types in early primate embryos.
study was published October 31 in the journal Science.
, in contrast, rodent life is not initially trapped in the acquisition of materials. on August 8,
, nature published the Chinese Academy of Sciences Molecular Cell Science Excellence Innovation Center (Biochemical and Cell Institute) Jing Nai-chi and other scientists successfully mapped the early embryonic development of mice containing time and space information at the same time, space of high-precision cell "growth trajectory" three-dimensional stereoscopic map, found that a part of the inner embryo layer cells are very likely to "cross" the upper embryo layer directly from the original embryo layer, originally thought to be along different differentiation paths to the embryo and outer layer cells.
expert comments: fine mapping will convey more information, such as the number of interactions between egg cells and sperm, determines the reproductive process, the probability of abnormal reproductive cells, can allow people to analyze the genetic information that will really affect the next generation, thereby guiding diagnosis and treatment.
- Qiao Jie, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the opening of a national synthetic biotechnology innovation center from scratch, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced through its official website that it agreed in principle to the National Synthetic Biotechnology Innovation Center Construction Program. The
Center is led by the Tianjin Industrial Biology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the goal is to break through the technological bottlenecks of China's pharmaceutical, food, petrochemical and other fields, seize the commanding heights of global biotechnology and industrial development, and promote the sustainable development of social green. the introduction of
talents and the construction of echelons is undoubtedly the "first army" of synthetic biology. On December 16,
, the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a recruitment information for the recruitment of two postdoctoral students from its Center for In vitro Synthetic Biology.
and to achieve the goal of "focusing on breaking through the technical bottleneck constraints of industrial enzymes and core strains in autonomous construction and engineering application, leading the construction of a new technological path for future biomanufacturing", there is an urgent need for original basic research.
2018, our team of scientists has published several breakthrough papers in the field of yeast re-engineering.
the chromosomes of organisms such as yeast will be able to adjust for pre-set purposes, without affecting their life course, but also achieving goals efficiently.
awarded to Yuan Yingjin, Vice President of Tianjin University, the Outstanding Achievement Award of this year's Pharmaceutical Mingkang Erad Prize for Life Chemistry Research.
his team not only precisely controls the rearrangement of synthetic hapid and dipel yeast genomes, but also creates a single fusion chromosomal yeast.
developed multi-round iterative genome rearrangement technology through the design of the "with the door" switch, combined with the history of yeast cell life, and after 5 rounds of iterative rearrangement, the experiment proved that the carotene yield of cell factory products could be increased by 38.8 times.
technologies can greatly accelerate the rapid evolution of the production of strains, analyze the relationship between genomic structural variation and functional discovery, and improve the production and synthesis of energy pharmaceutical chemicals.
expert comments: Our exploration of synthetic biology will not only be the chemical synthesis of artificial genomes, but also toward automation and intelligence.
recently, we have successfully stored a video using synthetic DNA and successfully read the information in it.
future, synthetic DNA as a medium for information storage and reading will provide an opportunity for more interdisciplinary development, providing research and development inspiration and direction.
- Tianjin University Vice President Yuan Yingjin 3, grassland greedy night ferret invasion of China's whole genome sequencing response to emergencies in January 2019, grassland night slugs from Southeast Asia invaded China's Yunnan, Guangxi, more than 2 million mu of grain production areas suffered.
grass night ferret breeding capacity is 2-5 times that of the general pest, migration capacity is very strong, one night can fly 100 kilometers ... The situation, and the struggle against it, must include a war of time.
in order to avoid harm to the safety of food production, it is necessary to deepen the understanding of the species through genomics and so on, from the root causes of prevention and control.
the invasion of grass-sized nocturnal ferrets has allowed whole genome sequencing to keep up with the tense pace of emergencies.
this is a battle against the breeding and invasion of species.
, a number of domestic units jointly set up a research group from May 21 received the mission instructions 2 hours later, identified the project implementation program and sample sources.
the next day, they took samples in Guangzhou, and samples from Yunnan arrived in Shenzhen, the same day began DNA extraction and other work; On the 15th day, transcription data were machined to complete the assembly of the hole and begin genome annotation; on the 25th day, June 15, the genome of two chromosome levels was published to identify the invasive chinese grassland gnostic subtypes and possible sources, published in BioRxiv.
for genome-wide sequencing, China's independently developed sequencing equipment has shortened the time period from year to year to several days, and the rapid response of gene sequencing technology will bring changes to agriculture, medicine and so on.
expert review: Not all sequencing is to obtain a complete genome sequence, and most sequencing is currently a sequence of specific regions.
difficult to sequence from scratch, the difficulty is to get the longest possible sequence to assemble.
sequencing from scratch allows all types of structural variations to be detected without being compared with the reference genome, resulting in the "absolute value" of the genome. The more popular the "absolute"
, the more it will help individuals diagnose and predict complex diseases.
- Huada Zhi made COO Jiang Hui 4, anti-Ai research is now dawn I scholar exploration of CRISPR technology to treat AIDS "nature" recently released the 2019 top ten people, Peking University professor Deng Hongkui in the CRISPR gene editing technology applied to adult AIDS patients selected. on September 12,
, the New England Journal of Medicine published online the chinese scholars this "by gene editing technology, to complement the 'Berlin patient' short" exploration - Professor Deng Hongkui and the PLA General Hospital Fifth Medical Center Professor Chen Hu, The Capital Medical University affiliated Yu'an Hospital Professor Wu Wei and other team, using gene editing means in human hematopoietic stem cells in the survival of THE CCR5 gene, and edited stem cell transplanted to HIV(HIV) in the world for the first time.
, gene-edited hematopoietic stem cells can survive in patients and reproduce from "a small number of outsiders" to "absolute majority of indigenous people", is the key to cure AIDS.
it proves that gene-edited hematopoietic stem cells are safe in the human body and can survive, and may even "breed in adversity."
this conclusion gives AIDS patients hope, for clinical research to give a "can" demonstration. in an exclusive interview with Science Daily,
, Deng Hongkui said he was most worried that they would not survive, and that if genetically edited stem cells were difficult to survive in the body, the lives of patients would be in danger.
because patients are the first, the team chose a more insecure gene-edited stem cell-share infusion.
some time since the He Jiankui incident, gene editing technology has come to a near halt, and calls for a halt to clinical trials and applications of gene editing have been on the rise.
patients first or scientific research first? This is probably a cone of respect for patients' right to know, in addition to clinical trial ethics.
expert comments: through gene editing to knock out the adult hematopoietic stem cell CCR5 gene, and then the edited cell transplanted into THE body of AIDS patients has become a "functional cure" AIDS new strategy.
it is important to stress that the application of gene editing techniques mentioned in this is a completely different goal than the CCR5 gene used to edit the CCR5 gene for reproductive cells and reproduction in the Hejiankui event.
- Tsinghua University AIDS Comprehensive Research Center Director Zhang Linxuan 5, rapid hemorrhage has a new magic "glue" on the animal model "try-to-do" heart hole, blood gushing out, squeezed on matrix Gel (net glue), and then with a beam of ultraviolet light for irradiation, within a few seconds, the blood stopped.
Matrix Gel's core component is the molecularly modified hyaluronic acid of gelatin and photonic machines, which allow sclerotic openings to close perfectly without stitching.
gel spent in the May issue of Nature Communications, where team leader Ouyang Hongwei, a professor at Zhejiang University, said Matrix Gel was modified by FDA-certified natural proteins and polysaccharides, with good biocompatibility and promising clinical inputprospects.
is also clotting, and some scientists have set their sights on natural coagulation factors.
clotting process is a balanced process, the presence of several negative control factors of coagulation will prevent excessive coagulation.
team of researchers from Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, recently found that plasma-turned ferritin interacts with fibrin, coagulation enzyme, coagulation factor XIIa, and anticoagulase with different affinity to maintain the balance of the clotting system, and has been confirmed in the onset model of atherosclerosis in mice.
related research published in the recent journal Cell Research.
another magical peptide small molecule, ZY4, after 60 generations of continuous "competition" with Baumann's aphoreria and leus bacteria, the antiseptic effect stood still not significantly changed.
cunning anti-drug bacteria, in front of it has become like a sun monkey in the palm of the hand, let the change also can not escape.
animal experiments with the antibacterial peptide ZY4 have shown that it can significantly inhibit the spread of Bacillus And Leus bacteria in the body and lung infections and inflammation caused by the bacteria.
ZY4 is not natural, but more than 1000 antimicrobial peptides of the "strong combination", the team of researchers through the design and modification of strong antibacterial activity, high stability and low toxicity of the antibacterial peptide ZY4.
study published in the December 16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
expert comments: the new function of protein discovery needs two necessary conditions, on the one hand, the accumulation of active peptides and active protein, on the other hand, the formation of relevant animal models and platforms for the analysis of the function screening.
the increasing number of new peptides are being discovered and proven, such as some of the toxic species, which have antioxidant effects, and some antimicrobial peptides are gradually entering clinical trials.
- Yao Yonggang, a researcher at the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whose DNA story may rewrite the creation of two new bases by American scientists and will surely start with "The beginning of the world".
however, the story of the four bases was rewritten this year, but it was not "hand of God".
In February, U.S. scientists for the first time synthesized DNA containing eight bases.
experiments have shown that synthetic DNA can store and transcribe information like natural DNA.
team led by Steven Benner, by adjusting the common bases - ostrich, cytosine, adenine, and thymus (G, C, A, T), where A and T are paired, C and G.