Portraits of 43 State Key Medical Laboratories: Focusing on the Blue Ocean medical field, Beijing and Shanghai account for "half of the country"
In China's scientific and technological innovation system, the State Key Laboratory is an important part. These scientific research entities established by universities and research institutes provide important support for scientific research in related fields and scientific basis for national macro-decision-making through systematic and original achievements with international influence around the national development strategy.
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The State Key Laboratory has gathered outstanding academic leaders, high-quality research backbones, and high-level technicians and managers in this field. To some extent, these laboratories represent the highest research level in the corresponding fields in China.
China's key laboratory construction plan has formed a relatively perfect system and management mechanism.
According to the Statistical Bulletin of National Economic and Social Development in 2021 issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2021, there were 533 state key laboratories in operation. In this paper, 43 national key laboratories in the field of medical innovation were selected from many laboratories, hoping to provide directions for industrial innovation and resource mining by analyzing the research fields and characteristics of these laboratories.
Biomedical related research is the most concerned.
For the convenience of statistics, the main research directions of the selected laboratories are comprehensively classified into five directions: biomedicine (including the research and development and production of natural drugs, biopharmaceuticals, chemical drugs, biotherapy solutions, synthetic biology and other biotechnology-led technical fields), medical devices (including in vitro diagnosis, medical imaging, biochemical detection and other related medical device technologies, products and components research), clinical medicine (clinical medical research), brain science and medical materials. Judging from the distribution of research heat in these laboratories, biomedical research is the hottest.
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The research resources of hot spot distribution map of state key laboratories related to medical care are highly concentrated. From the perspective of regional distribution, the distribution of state key laboratories is similar to that of education and research resources. The vast majority of state key laboratories are located in Beijing and Shanghai, with 11 and 13 laboratories respectively. The third place is Jiangsu Province, which has four State Key Laboratories. Although the medical innovation industry in Jiangsu Province ranks among the best in China, there is still a cliff gap between the distribution of its research resources and Beijing and Shanghai. 55011662766005504
Distribution of State Key Laboratories Related to Medical Care
Beijing has a balanced distribution of research directions, Shanghai has a heavy position in biomedicine, and Jiangsu and Sichuan have advantages in medical materials research.
Based on the distribution of laboratories and research fields, we believe that the research direction of state key laboratories in various regions is closely related to the distribution of local research resources. Most of the laboratories for clinical medical research are located in Beijing and Shanghai, where medical resources and clinical research resources are the most intensive.
In the field of medical devices and brain science research, Beijing and Shanghai are equally matched. However, in the field of biomedicine, Shanghai has obvious advantages, and 10 laboratories are engaged in biomedical research.
Although Jiangsu and Sichuan are not dominant in the previous research resources, they have formed a unique advantage in Shanghai's relatively weak innovation direction. There are three key laboratories engaged in medical materials research in both places, among which the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering in Chengdu is the academic highland of polymer materials research in China. 52821662766005829
Geographical-research field distribution map
Research Characteristics of State Key Laboratory
There are foundations and applications.
One of the duties of the State Key Laboratory is to promote innovation in basic research. However, basic research and applied research always complement each other. In this process, a large number of applied research achievements of PI have promoted the overall innovation level of the industry.
Take the State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicine and Biomimetic Medicine as an example, which is one of the first batch of national key laboratories. The laboratory carries out basic and applied basic research around the basic scientific problems of the medicinal properties of complex components of natural products and the bionic key technical bottleneck of endogenous substances playing a therapeutic role. On the basis of basic research, the laboratory has carried out a number of biomedical related applications that have attracted much attention from the industry, including nucleic acid chemistry, anti-tumor and antiviral drugs, new antiviral small molecules, protein biomacromolecule drugs, drug delivery and so on.
Research direction: focusing on the international and combining the national conditions.
We often compare domestic industries with international standards, but in fact, there is international competition in academia. Almost all PIs in these laboratories have corresponding overseas research or exchange learning backgrounds. Just as domestic entrepreneurs and investors keep an eye on global trends, domestic researchers also keep an eye on international research trends.
Take brain science as an example. Since Professor George Church put forward the "Brain Science Program" initiative, the research on brain science has attracted worldwide attention. In 2013, the United States officially launched the "Brain Research by Promoting Innovative Neurotechnology" program. In fact, before this, domestic brain science research began to be laid out.
In 2005, the Ministry of Science and Technology established the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning in Beijing Normal University. The laboratory focuses on the development law of human brain and the mechanism of cognitive development and learning, focusing on the basic theoretical research on the development law of brain and its relationship with individual comprehensive intelligence, various learning abilities and psychological behavior development.
The State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, which focuses on the study of neurological diseases and sports injuries, was established earlier, and a number of high-quality research papers were published in high-impact SCI journals such as Nature, Cell, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Genetics, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, Brain and Journal of Neuroscience.
If the international frontier research reflects the "global" of the State Key Laboratory, then the other part of the research combined with the characteristics of national conditions reflects the localization of high-level research.
As we all know, China is a big country with liver diseases, the incidence of liver diseases is about 10%, and the total number of patients with liver cancer accounts for about 45% of the world. In this context, the prevention and treatment of liver disease and liver cancer have also become the characteristics of disease diagnosis and treatment research in China.
Many key laboratories devoted to biotechnology and clinical medicine, such as the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, the State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, the State Key Laboratory of Virology and the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, have positioned the diagnosis and treatment of liver disease and liver cancer as one of the key research areas.
Among them, the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering has set up a molecular genetics research group for liver cancer, led by Academician Fan Jia, which has carried out a lot of research on liver transplantation and damage repair, genetic mechanism of liver cancer, therapeutic drugs and personalized treatment schemes for liver cancer and clinical medical research.
Convergence of applied research and industrial innovation
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Cloud image of words in applied research field
In order to more accurately reflect the attention direction of academic research and industrial innovation, we have counted the main research directions of these laboratories and presented them intuitively through the word cloud map.
It can be seen that drug research and development and in vitro diagnosis are two major application research centers in the laboratory. Around these two centers, the research on gene therapy, brain science, regenerative medicine, drug delivery, synthetic biology and medical materials is the hottest.
Coincidentally, these sub-sectors have also attracted the attention of capital in recent years, and they are several sub-sectors that have risen rapidly in the industry. Due to the relatively high threshold of technological innovation industry, these subdivided tracks are also the tracks where scientists and entrepreneurs haunt the most.
In the past, it was often thought that academic research and industry were seriously out of touch, but from the distribution and direction of these studies, in fact, academic research and industry research are highly compatible in the general direction. Even some researchers have pushed the products to the stage of small test or even pilot test in the laboratory.
We boldly speculate that in the field of applied research, perhaps the distance between academic research and industrial innovation is not as far as imagined.
Research characteristics: higher than industry
Despite the convergence in the general direction, there are still great differences between academic research and industrial research. Specifically, industrial research is more "development", aiming at completing the work of "from 1 to N", that is, what products are formed and what problems are solved. Academic Research, on the other hand, is more "research", emphasizing the gradual progress from foundation to application, that is, the innovation from 0 to 1.
Moreover, the applied research in academic circles is usually radial, and the possibility of applied research is seen based on some basic research results, and many product forms can often be obtained based on applied research. In contrast, industrial research is a three-dimensional modeling at a certain radiation point of applied research.
Similarly, academic research is often more plentiful than industrial research. This phenomenon is closely related to their functions, positioning and funding sources. The R&D funds of enterprises usually need to be raised by themselves, so the output and benefits must be considered before R&D investment.
China's industrial innovation started a little late, which made vacancies in the upstream links of multiple markets. The research of scientific research institutes can be supported by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, enterprises and other aspects, and its research often extends from the bottom to the surface. Under the background of convergence of academic research and industrial innovation, the achievements of academic research are expected to gradually fill the industrial gap.
Drive the development of local industries.
For local governments, national laboratories are their important core R&D resources, which have a far-reaching impact on local industrial development. For example, Changsha, Hunan, has gathered many large-scale IVD enterprises such as Shengxiang Bio, Desai Bio, Pheko Bio and Sannuo Bio, which are involved in the upstream, middle and downstream links in the fields of chemiluminescence, blood sugar detection and molecular diagnosis.
The State Key Laboratory of Chemical Biosensing and Metrology, located in Hunan, mainly focuses on molecular recognition, biochemical analysis and chemometrics. The State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering is located in Chengdu. Relying on the advantages of Huaxi Hospital, it has become an industrial highland in the fields of medical polymer materials such as dentistry and orthopedics.
Needless to say, many national key laboratories in Shanghai are closely related to the biomedical industry, forming an echo and closed loop between industry and scientific research.
Transform, innovate or become a trend
Transformation is an essential work for academic research to help the industry form. Under the wave of transformation and innovation, the transformation of the achievements of the State Key Laboratory seems to be forming a natural process.
The transformation methods of achievements include authorization, transfer and self-transformation. The State Key Laboratory relies on the independence of the unit in human, financial and material resources, so it has an independent achievement transformation department, and the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy has also set up a special achievement transformation platform to promote the transformation work.
However, most of the achievements are still transformed through horizontal projects and patent transfer. For example, in 2016, Guizhou Bailing Enterprise acquired Academician Wei Yuquan's gene therapy anti-tumor project for 50 million yuan. In addition, Academician Wei also delivered more than 10 monoclonal antibody candidate drugs to the industry.
Because it takes a long research and development process from applied research to product research, most enterprises will still form a long-term contact and cooperation with scientists, and cooperation cases from patent transfer to cooperative incubation are not uncommon. For example, Beihao Research Institute, a wholly-owned subsidiary established by Guanhao Bio-based on CiPS technology and EPS technology of Professor Deng Hongkui from Peking University, continues to carry out research on biological artificial hepatocyte treatment technology. The two sides also jointly established the regenerative medicine company Hongguan Regenerative Medicine.
Compared with the first two, the proportion of the results transformed by researchers themselves is relatively small, but this part of the results is still remarkable. These highly innovative companies frequently get financing in the industry.
For example, Ai Weide Biotechnology, an organ-like research and development company that Professor Gu Zhongze participated in, has completed nearly 100 million yuan of Pre-A financing; Synbiotics, a synthetic biology company jointly established by Academician Zhao Guoping and Academician Yue Jianmin, received RMB 10 million angel round financing at the end of 2021. The two biotechnology companies founded by Professor Wei Wensheng of Peking University have both completed hundreds of millions of RMB financing, and Boya Ji, an earlier gene therapy company, has raised more than RMB 1 billion. Westinghouse Biomedical, a vaccine research and development company co-founded by Academician Wei Yuquan and more than 10 scientists from the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, raised RMB 300 million in 2021, with a valuation of nearly RMB 7 billion.
In addition, almost every national key laboratory has opened channels for displaying achievements and patents. In the endless stream of industrial cooperation demand and industrial innovation, researchers no longer keep the achievements as "Paper" files, but accept and even look for reliable and trustworthy industrial transformation and cooperation with an open attitude. Perhaps in the near future, these national key laboratories will not only be an important theme of scientific research, but also become an important support for industrial innovation.
Attached is the list of relevant laboratories:
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