Understanding Genome Project in China

Summary.

1. China has been significantly involved in the genome sequencing area that China's premier research institute has gained outstanding achievements published in top-tier scientific journals including the genomes of cucumber, the giant panda, the first complete sequence of of an ancient human and noticeably the genome of more than 1000 species of gut bacteria compile from 577 billion base pairs of sequence data. The Beijing Genome Institute has carried out huge amount of projects to deal with 10000 microbial genome and those of 1000 plants and animals part in an effort to construct genomic tree of life in an evolutionary approach. moreover, scientists are trying to sequence rice genome and unlimited human genome since the genome sequencing process are aided by such state-of-the-art equipment as the HiSeq2000 from Illumina. One of the clear fact in BGI is that it itself performs as a sequence factory with the hope of producing cheap and high quality of genome sequence but many people are afraid of the lack of intellectual breakthrough as the science has been reduced to crude mechanization. It is essential to keep balance research purposes and sequence-for-money operating systems.

There is no doubt that Beijing Genome Institute sets a potential position in the map of genomic world due to conduction of big genome sequence projects. Some of them can be named as chicken and silkworm genome sequencing or impressively scientists have succeeded in sequencing the corona virus causing SARS to spread over Asia in 2003. Basing on what the institute have been doing so far, it is expected that BGI would be able to sequence genomes with the doubling speed while keeping half of the previous price.

BGI has an ambition to enlarge the scale of research institute by increasing the number of staffs or opening new branches oversea in Hongkong or San Francisco. However, there are many concerns about the financial problems related to operation, human resources that BGI has...