China’s ‘mutant pigs’ could halt pork crisis as DNA researchers fight to tackle African swine fever outbreak
- African swine fever has killed over 100 million pigs in China, sending pork prices and overall consumer inflation to record highs
- China outspends every other country except the United States on research and development with US$445 billion spent in 2017
Inside a fortresslike megafarm on the outskirts of Beijing, dozens of pink and black pigs forage and snooze, unfazed by the chilly spring air. These experimentally bred hogs are fortified with a gene for regulating heat, buffering them against northern China’s hypothermia-inducing winters.
“The most burning question for scientists is how to make the pig more healthy,” says Zhao, 45, who heads a 20-strong group of researchers and technicians at the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Zoology in Beijing, where he has become a superstar in the world of swine genomics.
The most burning question for scientists is how to make the pig more healthy
China’s ambitions, though, extend well beyond farm animals. In dozens of laboratories across the country, scientists are racing researchers in the United States and Europe to develop superior lines of food and fibre crops, while others are pushing the boundaries of medical science – sometimes facing criticism – by editing the human genome to correct disease-causing mutations or susceptibility to infections like HIV.
China’s investment in research and development has already catapulted the world’s most populous nation from relative obscurity in biomedical science to behemoth in less than two decades.
China outspends every other country barring the US on research and development – US$445 billion in 2017. Chinese firms have also stepped up acquisitions of foreign biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, with US$25.4 billion in deals since the start of 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
