China gains ground on US in genomics arms race, helping American doctors diagnose rare illnesses
How baby Quinlan’s extremely rare genetic mutation thrust his family into the centre of a global economic contest to push the limits of medicine
Lindsay Weekes knew something was wrong as soon as her son was born. The baby was a strapping 3.6kg, with thick, curly black hair. But from the first moment Quinlan drew air, Weekes could see he was tense, his muscles rigid.
Within 24 hours, Quinlan was whisked away to an intensive care unit. They began a battery of tests in hopes of diagnosing his disorder, the start of a tortuous journey that has thrust the family into the centre of a global economic race to push the limits of medicine.
The search for an answer has taken Quinlan to the cutting edge of the emerging field: the use of genomics, the study of our DNA, to tailor health care. The US has long been the industry’s undisputed leader, performing much of the research that first decoded our DNA about 15 years ago.
But now China is emerging as America’s fiercest competitor, and it is sinking billions of dollars into research and funding promising new companies at home and abroad – including a laboratory that handles some of the toughest cases at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts, where Quinlan has become a staff favourite.
Finding an answer for Quinlan and children like him relies as much on Chinese expertise as it does American ingenuity. One of the founders of the lab was born and trained in China before emigrating to the US. Chinese company WuXi NextCODE is one of its chief investors, and researchers there use WuXi’s programs to analyse the reams of data inside our DNA.