Month: March 2018

A team of Shihua LI at Emory University, Liangxue LAI at CAS South China Institute of Stem Cells and Regeneration Medicine, and Sen YAN at Jinan University used the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technique to introduce a segment of a human gene causing Huntington’s, with a very long glutamine repeat region, into pig fibroblast cells, Somatic cell nuclear transfer generated pig embryos carrying this genetic alteration. The “knock in” technique changing a gene in its natural sequence led to pigs which displayed symptoms such as movement problems, respiratory difficulties, which resemble those experienced by humans with HD and degeneration of the striatum, the region of the brain most affected by HD in humans, more than other regions of the brain. The pig model more closely matches the symptoms of the human disease, and treatments to affected nervous system tissues can be better tested in pigs compared to mice. CAS news release, March 30, 2018

The team of ZHU Tingxuan at the Institute of Psychology, CAS, combined cultural psychology and big data analysis (Twitter), to analyze the characteristics such as independence or individualism of countries or regions along the belt and road initiative. The world values database (WVS) project of the institute investigates and studies human values ​​and beliefs on a global scale. The scope of research covers 60 countries or regions. The latest data collection spans from 2010 to 2014, and the current sample size is 90350. In order to obtain indicators for individuality and social trust in countries or regions along the “One Belt and One Road” initiative, the study extracted individualistic scores (e. g., the stronguse of personal pronouns) focusing on 28 countries, and calculated relationships between this index (autonomy, equality, choice, expression) and social trust (universal trust, special trust). Using individualism as an independent variable and socio-economic variables as a control (such as per capita GDP, Gini coefficient, urban population ratio), cross-validation using the leave-one-out method was used to create a linear regression prediction model for individual emancipation and social trust indicators. The authors found that the colonial history of European and American countries is the biggest influencing factor for individualism, more important than the economic level, political history, religious beliefs, and other factors. Through regression analysis of WVS behavioral indicators, it was found that countries or regions with higher individualistic values had more trust in strangers. CAS news release, March 28, 2018

As an important base chemical, ethylene glycol is not only the main raw material of PET, an important plastic product, but also widely used in other fields of the chemical industry. At present, more than 90% of ethylene glycol production in the industry is through the oil route, namely the ethylene-epoxy hydration route, which is inefficient and energy-intensive. In addition, the route for the synthesis of ethylene glycol from coal-based syngas via dimethyl oxalate is long and costly. Methanol can be produced from coal, natural gas, biomass, or even carbon dioxide via syngas and is cheaply available. It is an important C1 platform molecule. Therefore, the direct production of ethylene glycol from methanol is of great significance. The research teams of DENG Dehui at CAS DICP, WANG Ye and CHENG Jun at Xiamen University prepared a porous MoS2-foam with modified CdS nanorod which dehydrogenated methanol under visible light irradiation to produce ethylene glycol and hydrogen. By reactor design, the selectivity of ethylene glycol formation was up to 90%, the yield was 16%, and the quantum efficiency 5 % (450nm). CAS news release, March 28, 2018

On March 26th, CAS launched the Strategy Pilot Project of Science and Technology” (A Class) in Beijing. The project networks between the CAS Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Innovation, and various CAS teams in interdisciplinary fields of materials science, chemistry, biomechanics, and clinical medicine. XIANG Libin, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, attended the kick-off meeting.” CAS news release, March 28, 2018

The group of XU Yun at CAS Institute of Semiconductors and GAO Qianqiang at Buffalo University have engineered a flexible TENG based on crumpled gold films. By introducing crumpled morphology onto the gold thin film using macrocontrol, the TENG delivered a maximum voltage of 124.6 V, a maximum current of 10.13 μA and maximum power density of 0.22 mW/cm2. Importantly, the output performance was quite stable, with no obvious degradation after 6-month storage in ambient environment due to the reliability of Au films. Electricity in TENG is generated by body movements such as bending a finger or rotating the wrist. It shows the potential to power wearable electronics by the human body in the future. CAS news release, March 27, 2018

A pilot drug store in Shandong has officially opened. This pharmacy is similar to a supermarket, but it is manned by a robotic pharmacist “Little Joe”. The level of the robotic pharmacist is equivalent to a pharmacist with 10 years of experience. He can diagnose the patient through consultation and give advice on medication. The pharmacy’s smart device will make recommendations based on the drug, and the patient can directly buy drugs by mobile payment. The robotic pharmacists is expected to play a role in lowering pharmacy costs and improving pharmacy service professionalism. A pharmacy’s average net profit is only 5% to 7%, of which the manpower cost is the highest, twice the rent. According to relevant statistics, there are 480,000 pharmacies throughout the country, and half of them are unable to provide professional pharmacists services because they do not have enough talent pools to provide accurate advice for patients. The drugs provided by the pharmacist robot are non-prescription medicines. For prescription medicines, according to relevant regulations, hospital doctors will be required to confirm the sale. China Bio news release, March 26, 2018

According to a Nature symposium in Guangzhou, Chinese researchers published more than 90 original research papers in Nature in 2016, accounting for about 11 percent, compared with 0.4 percent in 1997. CAS news release, March 26, 2018

The first phase of the project is aimed at understanding how cancer and other complicated diseases develop by addressing the relationships and internal mechanisms between genes and phenotypes. As a first step, the project will produce a reference atlas for complete phenotypes of 20,000 healthy Chinese. Chief scientist of the project is LI Jin, Vice President of Fudan University. CAS news release, March 26, 2018

A research team of SUN Jian and GE Qingjie at CAS DICP reported a CO2 hydrogenation to olefin process that reaches 72% selectivity and produces 50.3% of heavy alkenes (C4-C18), among which linear α-olefins account for 80%. The process is catalyzed by carbon-supported iron, commonly used in C-C coupling reactions, with multiple alkali promoters extracted from waste biomass such as corncobs. The mineral elements from corncob may promote the surface enrichment of potassium, suppressing secondary hydrogenation of alkenes on active sites. Furthermore, the carburization of iron species was enhanced to form more Fe5C2 species, achieving a good match of reverse water-gas shift reaction and subsequent C-C coupling. CAS news release, March 26, 2018