On the afternoon of May 24, Luo Wenzhi, director of the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress, led a delegation of the Municipal People’s Congress to Guangming District to inspect the development of synthetic biology industry in Shenzhen. Luo stressed that it was imperative to make a prospective layout, promote the deep integration of government, industry, academy and research, and build a global innovation highland of synthetic biology industry.
A scene of the inspection trip to Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Association
The delegation conducted a field survey of Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Association and held a symposium to listen to the reports and suggestions from Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Association and more than 10 synthetic biology enterprises. According to the introduction, the current global synthetic biology market is growing rapidly, which is expected to generate a trillion-level economic increment. Shenzhen has taken the cultivation and development of the synthetic biology industry as one of its eight major industries in the future, established the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology and the Industrial Innovation Alliance of Synthetic Biology, and released the top ten new products of synthetic biology last month, “picking up its speed” on the new track.
Luo Wenzhi pointed out that the third biotechnology revolution led by synthetic biology in the world was happening at a faster pace. The synthetic biology industry in Shenzhen shows a sound development trend, yet there are still many areas to make breakthroughs and innovations. We should start from the top-level design, focus on the frontier fields of industrial development, and develop a development roadmap of synthetic biology industry in line with the reality of Shenzhen. Basic research should be strengthened, focusing on underlying technologies such as gene detection, gene editing, gene synthesis and assembly, making use of the advantages of artificial intelligence and integrated circuit to facilitate synthetic biology research, and making good use of the major scientific and technological infrastructure for synthetic biology research in Shenzhen, so as to better support the industrial development in the future. We should create a better ecosystem for scientific and technological innovation, actively build platforms for communication and cooperation among the government, enterprises, universities, and research institutes, give a better play to the role of enterprises as the main subjects of innovation, and support leading enterprises to establish innovation consortia. We should pay attention to technology transformation, focus on the innovation and development of key industries of synthetic biology, regularly explore the scenarios and resources, release the list of scenarios, organize the docking with scenarios, and promote the application of products and solutions with independent innovations.
Luo Wenzhi required that related departments should strengthen the awareness of active and follow-up services, improve the supporting services such as face-to-face mechanism, increase the intensity of industrial capital support, provide complete supporting elements such as space and talent for the development of synthetic biology industry, and speed up the construction of a whole-process innovation ecological chain of “basic research, technology research, achievement industrialization, high-tech finance and talent support”. The Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress will take this inspection as an opportunity and continue to care for and support the development of the synthetic biology industry, study and develop legislation to promote the development of the synthetic biology industry, actively promote the solving of practical problems, and create a good ecological environment for the accelerated development of the synthetic biology industry in Shenzhen.
