Being the Pioneer of Life Sciences in China: —Introduction to Beijing Genomics Institute

Zhang, Xin

China is the birthplace of the silk. Nowadays it has become a common opinion of world silk scientists that it is very necessary to find and construct a “Silk Road in the 21st Century” to break through the traditional silk technology, fundamentally control the lepidopterous pests, and improve the development of biological medicine. This plan should start from the silkworm, center in modern science and technology, and depend on the platform of genome research. Fierce competitions have taken place in this research field. On June 1, 2003, BGI and The Southwest Agricultural University of China cooperated together and launched the Silkworm Genome Project. In November 2003, we took the lead in the world to accomplish the draft genome sequence of silkworm. This is another significant breakthrough in the field of genomics by Chinese scientists after the accomplishment of HGP (China part) and the Rice Genome Project, demonstrating that China has been on the leading level in the world on the silkworm genome research.