Global Lords: I Have Information System

[This Chapter is Chapter Three]

Everyone knows about the Software Developer Conference, but have you ever heard about the Biological Developer Conference? Starting yesterday, the global inaugural Synbiopunk2021 and Biological Developer Conference was held in Shanghai.

This year’s conference, themed ”Link Starting”, aims to promote the linkage of various communities within the entire industry of engineering biology, fostering a better ecosystem to boost the development of biotechnology products, and initiating a new link in the ecosystem of engineering biology. The conference gathered experts, with over a hundred company representatives and numerous investors also attending.

With DNA as the code, the professional biological developers have arrived

Synthetic biology is an emerging interdisciplinary science of the 21st century. It can utilize Escherichia coli to produce bulk chemical materials, freeing us from the constraints of petroleum-based raw materials; yeast to produce artemisinin and rare ginsenoside, reducing costs and promoting new drug development; engineered bacteria that do not ”accidentally” attack normal cells but specifically target cancer cells...

”In the ’converging’ era, the R&D capabilities of life sciences and biotechnology urgently need enhancement,” said the academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhao Guopeng, at the conference. Synthetic biology adopts the engineering ”bottom-up” approach, breaking the boundaries between ”nature” and ”non-nature,” turning biological macromolecules with catalytic regulatory functions in nature into standardized ”components,” and creating new biological parts such as ”modules,” ”circuits,” and cellular ”chassis” to construct artificial life systems with various purposes.

Just like the IT industry has software engineers writing code, biological developers use DNA as ”coding,” focusing on the original innovation of biotechnology and the development of new products. The initiator of the Synbiopunk2021 conference—Little Panda Biology (Shenzhen Xunzhu Biotechnology Co., Ltd.) founder Guo Haotian stated that in recent years, the division of labor within the biotechnology industry has become increasingly detailed. A middle layer group has emerged in the chain of the biotechnology industry. They neither study basic mechanisms nor engage in clinical trials or scale manufacturing, but specialize in developing fermentation product strains, reconstructing chassis microorganisms, designing protein drugs, even molecular breeding, and organoid remodeling. This group is referred to as biological developers in the industry.

Image provided by Wenhui, turning ”sugar” into gold, the ingenious uses of biological development

What use are biological developers? FinTech Chairman Zhao Xin Yan used the rapidly growing perfume industry in recent years as an example. Sandalwood is a precious scent extracted from sandalwood trees, with a selling price of up to 2,000 dollars per kilogram. A technology that biosynthesizes sandalwood from sugar could lower the price to 2,000 yuan per kilogram. Besides reducing costs, biosynthesis technology can significantly shorten the plant cultivation cycle and improve safety. A flavor extract that would require planting 150,000 acres of flower fields for a year can be synthesized in just five days using biosynthesis methods in petri dishes.

FinTech is researching ways to artificially synthesize the ”king of scents”—Dragon-Subduing Saliva Ether, a fragrant fixative with a ”subtle velvety softness.” Zhao Xin Yan stated that without this substance, perfumes can only last for up to 40 minutes, while its addition can extend the scent’s longevity to over four hours. As a result, almost all high-end perfumes contain Dragon-Subduing Saliva Ether.

Currently, the company has completed the mass production from linalool to lavender lactone and urgently needs to develop the next synthesis technology step.

The conference also held a sustainable development challenge, with various biological solutions provided to unleash biological potential and aid sustainable development across different fields. Teams from many universities, such as Tsinghua University, East China University of Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, and Shanghai Science and Technology University, participated in the live competition.

Providing fundamental ”computing power” for life sciences

Just as IT workers require computing power, biological developers also need high-throughput, low-cost ”development tools,” and the emergence of the ultra-high-throughput vector testing platform by Little Panda Biology has solved many biological developers’ problems.

”We often encountered this situation: on one hand, developers working on the front lines in laboratories were unaware that excellent tools are available on the market to help accelerate R&D speed, lower costs, and reduce repetitive labor; on the other hand, institutions with platform capabilities found it challenging to reach customers and often had to spend significant resources on promotion,” said Guo Haotian. Little Panda Biology can provide cloud laboratory services for protein recombination at the million-level scale, which is six orders of magnitude higher than internationally common tools, at just one percent of the cost of ordinary tools.

The reason behind such ”cost-effectiveness” stems from Little Panda Biology’s synthetic biology cell programming technology, a brand-new experimental method that simply involves giving bacteria a piece of DNA code, allowing them to ”autonomously” work within cells.

As a startup in Shenzhen, why hold a conference in Shanghai? Guo Haotian candidly admitted that he is drawn to the excellent biomedical resources of Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta. As a ”fundamental computing power” existence in life sciences, this tool can be linked with almost all biological industries, providing them with excellent services.

”Yu Chuan’s Drifting” discussed several points, yet encountered issues in connectivity. From the protagonist’s perspective, what can we see? The protagonist returns home because he doesn’t have much time left. Pneumoconiosis is an awkward condition, effectively a death sentence for many within China. With a heart heavy with his diagnosis, the protagonist returns to his hometown. What life’s challenges does he face? Amidst various trials, how should this post-diagnosis mood be portrayed? This is the first core theme the author wants to convey: care for pneumoconiosis, or begin to focus on a previously neglected community.