Biotechnology in China: strategic and massive investment in genome editing

Abstract

China is strategically and massively investing financial funds in a new biotechnological field:
genome editing (or rewriting). Genome editing with “molecular scissors” involving a CRISPR-cas
system has since 2012 made it possible to precisely modify the DNA of an organism, animal,
plant or microorganism to provide it new traits. These organisms resulting from the genome
editing, the so called edited organisms, are not classified as GMOs in most countries, and
Europe has not yet decided whether they should be classified as GMOs or not. In China 12th
Five-Year Plan for National Strategic Emerging Industries published by the State Council in
December 2012, sets quantifiable objectives in the fields of medical, agricultural and industrial biotechnology for 2015 and 2020. China is investing primarily in agriculture and its uses
with CRISPR-cas with the 2017 acquisition of Syngenta, one of the four largest agrochemical
industries. To provide enough food for its population of 1.4 billion people with limited natural
resources, China may one day need edited plants. In 2013, China’s public funding for agricultural
research approached 9 billion euros. Chinese researchers in 2014 are pioneering the creation
with CRISPR-cas of the first agricultural plant, wheat varieties made resistant to a fungal disease, powdery mildew. They are also pioneers in germline gene therapy on non-viable human
embryos in 2015. They are exploring the modification of the human genome in medicine with
many clinical trials mainly to study cancer and are creating for this purpose monkeys edited as
models for the study of human diseases. Ethical drifts of genetic modification by CRISPR-cas
of the germline of the human genome of two AIDS-resistant twins by a Chinese team in 2018
have raised international opposition in the international community. Chinese researchers are
also applying the CRISPR-cas editor on a large scale in animals, in particular to humanize pig
organs for xenografts (transplants to humans) but also for veterinary medicine. A new balance
of geopolitical forces has appeared in the genome edition, with China being the country that
files the highest total number of patents per year and has taken the lead over the USA as of
2016. Especially the laboratories of the academies of science of China are in the lead in the
industrial and agricultural (plant and animal) sectors; American laboratories are in the lead
in technical improvements and in the medical field. China and the USA, which already have
their own regulations, are investing the most in this recent area of biotechnology. However,
the regulation in China of the products or edited foods resulting from these new genetic biotechnologies using CRISPR-cas engineering is not yet known.