In the 6-year government work report, it was mentioned that a future industrial investment growth mechanism should be established to cultivate future industries such as biomanufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence, and 0G. As a national regional science and technology innovation center under construction, Wuhan, Hubei Province is accelerating the layout of the future industry of biomanufacturing. How are organisms made? What can biomanufacturing make? Let's start with a miraculous ultrasound contrast agent.

Ultrasonography has long been very common, it can use sound waves to generate images of internal structures, when ordinary ultrasound images can not clearly reflect the specific location and image of the lesion, ultrasound contrast agents are needed to help ultrasound. These are tiny, nano-sized air sacs that can flow freely through the blood vessels. When encountering ultrasound, the gas in the nano-balloon will produce a strong echo, which will "light up" in the ultrasound image in contrast mode like a glow-in-the-dark ball, thus helping doctors better detect the lesion.

But you may not think that the source of the production of these brand-new nano-ultrasound contrast agents,It turned out to be some algae that could float.Researchers from the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences used the ability of some algae to float to extract the air sacs that control the floating of algae cells, and found that they have a good effect of contrast-enhanced ultrasound. And further through biomanufacturing, synthetic biology and genetic engineering are carried out in algal cells, so as to develop ultrasound contrast agents with different properties.It has the potential to replace traditional medical ultrasound contrast agents.

Synthetic biology is like an engineer building block, which can combine and design chassis cells, genetic elements and other parts to synthesize new materials with new characteristics and functions. The reporter walked into the freshwater algae seed bank of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is like a warehouse of algae genes.

At present, this nano-scale ultrasound contrast agent is about to enter the stage of achievement transformation, through this new biological manufacturing method, we will be able to produce medical contrast agent faster and at a lower cost, escorting people's lives and health. Biomanufacturing is a disruptive technology that can design and engineer an organism to produce a target product as efficiently as a cell factory. Its core technologies include gene editing, DNA synthesis and assembly, metabolic pathway remodeling, etc. Through these technologies, scientists can write the genetic code of our living organisms, allowing them to produce various products such as food, medicine, and materials, and help mankind solve various global problems such as food, energy, and the environment.

"Rice hematopoiesis"

Build the whole chain of plant manufacturing industry

Under the overall layout of the biomanufacturing industry, a series of cutting-edge and sci-fi biomanufacturing achievements are being accelerated in Wuhan. For example, a grain of seemingly ordinary rice is endowed with the ability to "make blood". Its realization not only requires a breakthrough in the application side, but also relies on the joint efforts of a whole highly coordinated industrial chain.

CCTV reporter Zhang Chunling:我現在手裡捧的可不是我們家裡普通吃的大米，通過神奇的基因工程技術，這些大米可以變身成為生產人血清白蛋白的“種子”。像我面前這樣一個50斤的大米，它所生產出來的人血清白蛋白的數量，相當於5升血漿的含量。

"Rice hematopoiesis", a concept that sounds "fantastical", has now become a reality at a biopharmaceutical company in Wuhan. Walking into the company's exhibition hall, the reporter saw a set of models showing its complete production process.

With the help of photosynthesis, with only sufficient water, nutrients and sunlight, plants can act like "green factories", continuously producing the substances we want, and this is the magic of plant manufacturing. And human serum albumin, which is made in this way,It is not only safer and more environmentally friendly, but also has the advantages of large-scale production and low cost, which is expected to become an important solution to alleviate the shortage of human serum albumin supply in China.

目前，使用這項技術研製的人血清白蛋白產品已完成三期臨床試驗，進入新藥審批流程，團隊已建成了年產100萬支注射液的智能工廠，正在建設年產1200萬支注射液的規模化生產基地。全新的生物製造技術突破，為我們帶來了顛覆式的創新可能。

Not only continues to make breakthroughs in the application side, but also continues to innovate the R&D model of plants, as the "source process" that supports the industry. About 10 minutes drive from this company, the reporter came to a company specializing in plant gene design, which is different from the traditional biological laboratory, through large-scale, assembly-line development and design, hundreds of new plant varieties can be born here every year, and it has become the largest "plant manufacturing research and development factory" in the country.

通過自研的遺傳轉化工具和平臺，不斷突破基因遺傳操作關鍵核心技術，結合工程化的研發模式，團隊將生物開發和設計的效率提升了20—50倍，每年能夠完成3萬—4萬個基因的操作。目前，團隊已能夠對30多種不同的植物進行基因調控，生產出以植物細胞為底盤細胞的各類創新產品。未來，團隊還希望結合人工智慧技術，建立一個龐大的植物基因庫，為更多產品的定向研發提供支撐。

Open up the last kilometer

Accelerate the layout of the biomanufacturing industry

In order to accelerate the implementation of the biomanufacturing industry, Hubei is opening up the collaborative innovation chain of industry, university and research to accelerate the development of this disruptive future industry.

CCTV reporter Zhang Chunling:Biomanufacturing can turn waste into treasure. For example, if you look at the waste straw in my hands, as well as waste items such as bagasse and corn residue, they can be processed and manufactured in a microbial factory, and finally they can produce aviation fuel, and every 200 tons of such straw can produce 0 tons of ethanol, which can make a medium-sized aviation aircraft fly about 0 kilometers.

Turning straw and other wastes into aviation fuel and industrial raw materials is the latest achievement of the research team of Hubei University. The acceleration of the implementation of this new technology is inseparable from the innovation and collaboration of Hubei University in scientific research organization.

According to the researchers, the school is equipped with high-end equipment such as cryo-electron microscope in the field of basic scientific research to help teachers have a sharp tool to see the microstructure of proteins in the basic research stage. Build a dedicated computing facility for synthetic biology and make better use of new research tools such as artificial intelligence for protein and enzyme screening. The school has also set up a small-scale and pilot-scale platform, so that the teachers' scientific research results can be verified on a small scale without leaving the school.

In the past three years, more than 16 projects have been implemented for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in the field of biomanufacturing, and nearly 0 scientific and technological enterprises in related fields have been cultivated and incubated. The accelerated development of biomanufacturing in Hubei University is the epitome of the accelerated layout of biomanufacturing in Hubei Province. The reporter came to the Hubei Provincial Department of Science and Technology, where the relevant person in charge introduced a detailed construction drawing to us around the future industry of biomanufacturing.

Shi Hong, Director of the Social Development Science and Technology Division of the Hubei Provincial Department of Science and Technology:According to our industrial chain innovation map, we have sorted out the list of technology needs in the province, with 9 categories of large ones and hundreds of categories of small ones. For example, we have proposed to solve the development of new gene editing technologies in the upstream, and the mining of new enzyme components and the construction of multi-enzyme catalytic systems in the midstream, and in the "15th Five-Year Plan", we hope to solve all the problems on the list and develop our synthetic biology industry.

(Reporter Zhang Chunling, She Lixia, Yang Yao, Hubei Station)