Nine key tasks to be performed in 2024 were deployed by the Central Economic Work Conference. The first task was to lead the development of a modern industrial system with scientific and technological innovation. We should promote industrial innovation with scientific innovation, especially foster new industries, new models and new drivers of growth with disruptive and frontier technologies, and develop new and quality productive forces.

As the first “national research team” in Shenzhen, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, adheres to the national strategy and bears in mind the regional needs. In 2023, it made fruitful achievements in strengthening basic research, and new breakthroughs were made in key and core technologies. It has made a number of major innovation achievements around “four orientations”. The synthetic biology research team has focused on the main responsibility and business, unleashes its organizational and institutional advantages in its effort to seize the commanding heights of science and technology. The “Development Map of Human Immune System” completed relying on the major scientific and technological infrastructure of synthetic biology research in Shenzhen (hereinafter referred to as “synthetic biology infrastructure”) was selected as one of the ten major events of scientific and technological innovation of Shenzhen in 2023.

“New types” of immune cells discovered, and basic research capabilities strengthened 

It has organized the implementation of major science and technology projects, undertaken a number of national major science and technology projects, deeply participated in the ministerial and municipal tasks such as “synthetic biology”, and taken the initiative to deploy major science and technology projects of the city. On September 12, 2023, the research team led by Li Hanjie with Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, SIAT University (preparatory) joined hands with several organizations to publish their latest research findings on the international top academic journal of Cell. They have managed to develop a development map of human immune system with the widest scope of coverage, the longest span of time and the highest sampling density, and discovered a “new type” of immune cells - microglia-like cells. The research was completed relying on the synthetic biology infrastructure and selected into the top ten pieces of scientific news of China in the year.

Time-space map for the development of human immune system