Since 1996 (almost pre-history in Web terms) I have had a regular column in The Biochemist, the membership magazine of the Biochemical Society. This was my first piece of regular science writing, and I will always be grateful to its then editor, Frank Burnet (now emeritus professor of science communication at the University of the West of England) for giving my fledgling second career such a flying start. In my column, The Cyberbiochemist, I aim to explain a topic or issue related in some way to computational biochemistry (or bioinformatics) in a way that is relevant and interesting to bench biochemists. Each issue has a theme, and very often, but not always, my column is related to that overall theme. In October 2011, to celebrate both the centenary of the Society and its opening an office in Beijing, that theme was "Biochemistry in China".
My contribution to this "China issue" was a survey of how bioinformatics has developed in China over the last few decades. And, like so many other technologies, that development has been meteorically upwards. The first Chinese bioinformatics research centre was set up in Beijing in 1996, the year I began my Cyberbiochemist column, but only fifteen years later the country boasts some of the fastest and most sophisticated genome sequencing technology in the world.
China does, however, still see itself as a scientific leader of the so-called Third World. It is the home of genetic sequencing projects and databases for its staple crop, rice, and the iconic giant panda. The panda's Latin name, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, means literally "black-and-white cat-foot" and its classification within the mammals was unclear until the advent of molecular genetics. Now, however, it is known to fit in the family Ursidae: the true bears.
Chinese molecular genetics, however, has proved itself in more important areas than just in solving a controversy over the naming of bears. A consortium including many Chinese scientists was responsible for sequencing the genome of the virus that caused the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and just last year a Chinese-led consortium rapidly analysed the genome of the exact bacterial strain that caused a deadly outbreak of food poisoning (remember the killer cucumber stories?) If, God forbid (and as only one example), avian influenza were to mutate into a highly infectious strain, I predict that Chinese scientists will play a crucial role in analysing and eventually controlling it.
You can read the whole article here (freely accessible). I would love to post the gorgeous photo of a seven-month-old panda cub that the editors used there, but it's not Creative Commons. And that, as I've said already, is for another post and another time.
