Some years ago, five white sea cucumbers sold at an auction in the city of Jinan for 160,000 renminbi, or nearly $26,000 at today’s exchange rate. Based on the genome sequence of sea cucumbers, sold by this institute and others, the group of YANG Hongsheng succeeded in breeding 150 million white sea cucumbers suitable for aquaculture. In Chinese traditional medicine, sea cucumbers — which are called haishen (海参), or “sea ginseng,” in Chinese — are thought to improve skin texture, reduce high blood pressure and suppress cancer.

CAS news release, August 8, 2015