BEIJING: Chinese researchers had published more than 567,000 papers related to biological resources by September, second only to the United States, a recent report said.
A study released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Tuesday said that in the past two years China has built a strong technological foundation in gene-editing, synthetic biotechnology and microbiomics, in which all microorganisms in a community are investigated together. The country has also made progress in building botanical gardens, biogenetic repositories, animal resources, biodiversity monitoring networks and data-sharing platforms.
Chinese research institutions published the highest proportion of papers in the discipline of molecular biology and genetics, accounting for 21.2 percent, followed by environment and ecology.
The report also said China has 220 academic institutes in the top 1 percent of research institutes in biological-resources disciplines, according to the Essential Science Indicator database, which helps identify the top research institutions in 22 fields. The 220 institutes account for a 10th of the top 1 percent of institutions globally, ranking China second in the world. Ma Juncai, director of the microbial resource and data center of the Institute of Microbiology, a CAS subsidiary, said that although China ranks second in the total number of papers, it is still far behind the US in terms of the number of highly cited papers, high-level institutions and highly cited researchers.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
