Biological manufacturing is full of vitality.

Bio-manufacturing is an advanced mode of production with industrial biotechnology as the core, which has the characteristics of renewable raw materials, clean and efficient process, and is helpful to promote the green and low-carbon development of the economy. This year’s government work report is being deployed.In 2024, the government pointed out that it should accelerate the development of new quality productivity and actively create new growth engines such as bio-manufacturing. This is the first time that "bio-manufacturing" has been written into the government work report.

In recent years, ""The Tenth Five-Year Plan for Bio-economic Development" and other related policies have been promulgated one after another, providing policy support for the development of China’s bio-manufacturing industry. The scale of China’s bio-manufacturing industry continues to grow, and many advanced technological achievements have emerged. Experts said that in the future, bio-manufacturing, as an emerging industry to accelerate the construction of a green and low-carbon circular economy system, has great development potential.

Reducing carbon emissions from the source of raw materials

Bio-manufacturing is the green driving force for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industry.

Industrial tail gas turns into fish feed, waste oil becomes airplane fuel, and straw is made into film.….. These things that sound like magic are actually happening now, and the magician who makes it possible is biological manufacturing technology.

What is bio-manufacturing? Zheng Yuguo, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, gave such an explanation-This is an advanced material transformation industrial model that uses biological tissues or organisms to process materials to produce various products needed by human beings. Different from the traditional industrial manufacturing with fossil resources as raw materials, the production materials used in biological manufacturing are basically sustainable and renewable raw materials, and the products produced are also degradable and recyclable, making the whole production process more green and low-carbon. The "Tenth Five-Year Plan" for Bio-economic Development clearly puts forward that "relying on bio-manufacturing technology, we will realize the bio-technology substitution of chemical raw materials and processes, develop high-performance bio-environmental protection materials and biological agents, promote the deep integration of manufacturing and biotechnology of important industrial products such as chemicals, medicines, materials and light industry, and transform into a green, low-carbon, non-toxic and low-toxic and sustainable development model." It can be said that vigorously developing the bio-manufacturing industry has become an important direction for China to accelerate the construction of a green and low-carbon circular economy system.

In recent years, many enterprises in China have used biotechnology and bio-based materials to get rid of the dependence on fossil raw materials and the processing mode of high pollution and high emission, and embarked on a green and low-carbon development path. In the workshop of Sichuan Jinshang Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinshang Environmental Protection), barrels of black and turbid kitchen waste oil were treated by washing, impurity removal, hydrodeoxygenation, isomerization and other processes, and became a clear and translucent new fuel.-Bio-jet fuel. Last April, this biofuel was used on a plane of Sichuan Airlines.

According to the relevant person in charge of Jinshang Environmental Protection, at present, internationally, waste oil from dining kitchens is also commonly known as it.It is a mature process to extract biofuel from waste oil. Although compared with petroleum-based fuel, the current production cost of bio-based fuel has not come down, but its application prospect is very broad. On the one hand, the tail gas produced by fuel has always been a major source of carbon emissions in the aviation industry. Statistics show that more than 80% of the carbon emissions of airlines come from jet fuel combustion. In today’s increasingly urgent carbon reduction and emission reduction, bio-jet fuel shows absolute advantages. Compared with petroleum-based aviation kerosene, the carbon dioxide emission of bio-jet fuel can be reduced by more than 50% in the whole life cycle. On the other hand, in today’s increasingly tight oil resources, bio-jet fuel not only reduces oil consumption, but also greatly reduces the backflow of waste oil to the table.

Through biotechnology, not only waste cooking oil can be turned into treasure, but also agricultural waste straw has regained its value. In Anhui Fengyuan Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Anhui Fengyuan), the straw from the field is treated by biological fermentation and other processes to become a translucent particle.-polylactic acid. Packaging bags, films or disposable straws made of this material can replace petroleum-based plastic products to some extent. Compared with the degradation time of traditional plastics for hundreds of years, the degradation time of polylactic acid only takes 3 to 5 years, which has less burden on the environment.

In Beijing Shougang Langze Technology Co., Ltd., R&D personnel convert industrial tail gas into bioethanol and fish feed protein through gas fermentation technology independently developed, and the whole production process will not produce any secondary pollutants. According to experts’ estimation, at present, China’s steel metallurgy and other industries produce more than one trillion cubic meters of industrial tail gas every year, even if only one of them is used.50%, it can also produce 5 million tons of feed protein per year, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 120 million tons.

Tan Tianwei, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, said that the chemical industry for hundreds of years basically used oil and coal as raw materials, and these raw materials were basically non-renewable. Bio-manufacturing has the characteristics of renewable raw materials and clean and efficient process, which can fundamentally change the traditional manufacturing industry’s high dependence on fossil raw materials and"High pollution, high emission" processing mode. Bio-manufacturing reduces carbon emissions from the source of raw materials, which is a green driving force for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industry and an important breakthrough for green development.

Environment-friendly and high safety.

Biological products provide assistance for the sustainable development of agriculture

In the middle and late March, winter wheat in Baifusi Village, Xichong County, Nanchong City, Sichuan Province has entered the heading stage. Over the green wheat field, several drones are spraying biological pesticides for wheat seedlings. Wheat field contractor-Lao Wu, site management manager of Xichong County Liangwang Ecological Development Co., Ltd. told the reporter that this year, his company contracted more than 2,000 mu of wheat fields, all of which used biological pesticides. A few days ago, aphids grew in the wheat field, so they used matrine to kill insects. Compared with the chemical pesticides used in the past, these biological pesticides have no pungent smell, little toxicity, safer for people and animals and less impact on the environment.

Agriculture is a common application field of bio-manufacturing. 《The "14th Five-Year Plan" for Bio-economic Development clearly puts forward that we should focus on bio-fertilizer and bio-pesticide, and launch a batch of new generation agricultural bio-products. In recent years, biological pesticides, biological fertilizers and biological breeding have been developed and applied in China, providing assistance for the green and sustainable development of agriculture in China.

Hubei province biological pesticide engineering research center is a research and development institution of microbial pesticides, fromSince 1960s, systematic collection, preservation, evaluation and utilization of microbial pesticide resources have been carried out. There are more than 200,000 microbial strains stored in the microbial pesticide resource library of the center, which are important resources for developing new microbial pesticides. These strains will go into dormancy in ultra-low temperature environment and can be taken out and activated when necessary.

According to Wang Kaimei, deputy director of Hubei Biopesticide Engineering Research Center, these strains were collected by him and his colleagues all over the country in recent years."baby" Although the work is hard, once I find a strain that I have never seen before, I feel very fulfilled. According to different kinds of strains, the storage methods are different. There are 10 ultra-low temperature freezers at -80℃ and 8 freezers at -20℃ in the storage area of microbial pesticide resource bank, in which various test tubes are placed and strains are stored. At present, the strain resources preserved in the resource database cover domestic microbial pesticides, microbial fertilizers, microbial feed additives, microbial environmental monitoring and treatment and other agricultural application fields.

Developing microbial active strains into pesticides is a process involving many steps. Wang Kaimei said that in the early stage, steps such as identification of strains, determination of active ingredients, fermentation optimization and preparation research and development, field test and effect evaluation should be carried out. Then, after meeting the requirements of relevant regulations and standards, apply for pesticide registration to relevant institutions.

After years of research, Hubei Biopesticide Engineering Research Center has found many effective strains against common pests. For example, the researchers found that one kind of Bacillus had high virulence to tetranychus urticae, which was common on citrus leaves in southern China. The experiments in citrus orchards in many places in China confirmed that this strain had the same control effect as chemical acaricide. From this strain, the researchers also found the first case in the world.Two kinds of protein acaricidal active substances have high commercial product development value.

China has a vast territory and complex natural conditions, so the microbial flora is also rich and diverse. These provide natural advantages for the research and development of biological pesticides and biological fertilizers in China. At the 13th Biopesticide Development and Application Exchange Conference, the participating experts released such a set of data: the annual output of bio-pesticides in China is more than 100,000 tons, with an output value of about.3 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 10% of the total output and output value of pesticides, with great potential.

Wang Kaimei said that the application of bio-manufacturing technology in agriculture has become more and more extensive, which is of great significance for promoting high-quality and green development of agriculture. Specific to the field of biological pesticides, green biological pesticides are the basic means of production to ensure the green and high-quality development of agriculture. Develop environmentally friendly"Green pesticide" has become an important direction of agricultural sustainable development.

Independent research and development achievements are constantly emerging.

China’s biomedical industry has entered an innovative development."fast lane"

Chengdu High-tech Zone, Sichuan Province-An innovative region dominated by emerging industries such as biomedicine. There are more than 00 biomedical enterprises here, and there are more than 160 biomedical functional platforms covering the whole life cycle. The scale of biomedical industry in the whole region has maintained a growth rate of more than 20% for six consecutive years, ranking first in the comprehensive competitiveness ranking of biomedical parks in national high-tech zones.

Located in Chengdu High-tech Zone, Chengdu Micro-core Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Chengdu Micro-core) is a biomedical enterprise integrating early research and product development of new drugs. In recent years, many original new drugs, such as chidamide, have been born in the R&D center of Chengdu Microchip. Among them, the original new drug sitagliptin sodium has been approved by National Medical Products Administration and listed in the national medical insurance drug list, and another original new drug for the treatment of small cell lung cancer, Sioloni, will also apply for listing this year.

Biomedical industry is an important part of bio-manufacturing and one of the key areas of bio-manufacturing application. Relevant data show that in recent years, China’s biomedical industry has entered an innovative development."Fast lane", on the one hand, the number of innovative drugs has increased substantially. At present, about 35% of the drugs in clinical research in the world are originally researched or developed by Chinese enterprises, ranking second in the world after the United States. On the other hand, the quality of biomedical research and development is in line with the international advanced level, and gradually moves from imitation to independent innovation, from dependence on imports to domestic substitution.

Biomedical industry is a technology-intensive industry, especially mentioned in this year’s government work report."Innovative drugs" require a lot of capital and technical input, but even so, the probability of finding a new drug is very small. In order to improve the research and development efficiency of innovative drugs, in recent years, some enterprises in Chengdu High-tech Zone have found a new way to apply emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence to the research and development of innovative drugs to make up for some shortcomings in traditional experiments.

With the help of artificial intelligence technology, R&D personnel have established a virtual biopharmaceutical library. Through the artificial intelligence algorithm based on biological logic and related application software, through the calculation, analysis and prediction of artificial intelligence technology, the results that took months of offline experiments in the past can be obtained in a short period of time, which greatly shortens the development cycle of macromolecular drugs.

In the field of biomedicine, although high investment in R&D may not be successful, failure to invest is doomed to be eliminated. In Chengdu High-tech Zone, the R&D investment of biomedical enterprises is not low. The cumulative investment in R&D expenses of some enterprises accounts for more than the cumulative operating income.10%。 The emphasis and investment in innovation has also enabled Chengdu High-tech Zone to have more and more independent innovative drugs approved for listing in recent years. According to the data released by the Bio-industry Bureau of Chengdu High-tech Zone, last year alone, the number of authorized invention patents obtained by enterprises in bio-pharmaceutical regulations in the whole region was nearly 360.

Li Qi, deputy director of the Bio-industry Bureau of Chengdu High-tech Zone, said that the rapid development of bio-pharmaceutical industry, as a new industry, has stimulated more talents in the fields of technology, research and development, and production to achieve innovation and technological progress, which has an important role in promoting economic growth and industrial upgrading. according toAccording to the China Biomedical Industry Development Index released at the National Biotechnology Conference in 2023, the key provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) of China’s biomedical industry are mainly distributed in the Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim, Pearl River Delta, the Central Yangtze River Economic Belt and Sichuan and Chongqing, which have formed a strong industrial agglomeration effect. (Author: Wang Yajing)