Science & Technology on Bio-hylic and Biomass Resources in China: A Roadmap to 2050

 

 

　　Bio-hylic and biomass resources are the core component of renewable resources on earth and the foundation for human’s existence and development, and also are the most basic guarantee for maintaining the sustainability of economical and social development of mankind. China is one of the richest countries with the most abundant biological resources. In the 21st century, the transformation from a bio-hyilc and biomass resources power to a bio-economical power will become an inevitable trend in China.

 

　　Bio-hylic and biomass resources are the material basis of human development and prosperity, which are not only an important resource treasure on earth, but also the important national strategic biological resources. In addition to bio-hylic and biomass resources have being utilized, the vast majority of the resources with greater economical and social values we have not yet understood or utilized. There is still tremendous potential in tens of thousands species of animals, plants and micro-organisms that could be explored to meet the resource needs of necessaries of clothing, food, housing, transportation in sustainable development. In the 21st century, the natural resources and environmental problems have increasingly become major challenges for human society, which can influence development and future of our society: global fossil energy will be gradually exhausted, biological resources disappear rapidly, climate warming and environmental pollution is becoming increasingly serious, and the issues on energy and resource have a profound impact on economy, society, China’s security and long-term development. In the long vision, bio-hylic and biomass resources are the basis of sustainable economical and social development and national competitiveness. China is one of the richest countries in the world with the most abundant reserves of bio-hylic and biomass resources. To face the future in comprehensive consideration of the needs, resources, environment, science and technology, economy and other factors according to China’s national conditions, a clear long vision of strategic planning of science and technology development of bio-hylic and biomass resources in the next 30–50 years is of greatly strategic significance for forward planning of economy and society development in the future.

 

　　The overall goal of the roadmap of science and technology development of bio-hylic and biomass resources is to ensure the future sustainable use of bio-hylic and biomass resources and provide a resource security for development of Chinese bio-science and technology, bio-industry and bio-economy. The roadmap intends to a vision that China will achieve an inevitable transformation from a bio-hylic/biomass resources power to a both bio-hylic/biomass resources and bio-economic power in the 21st century. 

 

　　The fundamental ideology for scientific and technological development of the roadmap is streamline and integration of systematically understand biological material resources, bio-functional resources, gene resources and bio-intelligent resources. Through basic layout of the frontier research on bio-hylic and biomass generation, evolutionary change, metabolic regulation and other mechanisms; strategic implement of demand-driven research on integrity covering from bio community- population - individual - tissue - cell - gene and across disciplinary integration; and by forward visioning to build up the foundation of systems biology and applied technologies of life sciences, the strategic paths for sustainable exploration and utilization of new bio-hylic and biomass resources in both scales of macro-biological resources and micro-molecular resources are programmed to provide bio-hylic and biomass resource based sciences and technologies to support future development in new energy and materials, agriculture and food, nutrition and health, ecological and environmental fields.

 

　　Strategic path I: photosynthesis mechanism and increase of photosynthetic efficiency of crops and energy plants.

 

　　The strategic path will focus on basic research to reveal the mechanism of photosynthesis and breakthrough of applied technology bottlenecks of photosynthesis theories and principles. On emphasis of basis of native biological resources in China, it should be strengthening implementation of the theoretical and technical research on germplasm evaluation, discovery, and innovative approach of new biological resource types. The breakthrough of current bottlenecks should be rely on employment and integration of new theoretical and technological advances of genetic improvement, genetic engineering, large-scale cultivation and industrial production to build China’s sustainable bio-energy system, and ultimately, a large-scale application and commercialization of renewable energy technologies in China will be achieved. The strategic paths include:

 

　　Target 1, To understand and reveal the mechanism of photosynthesis;

 

　　Target 2, To improve photosynthetic efficiency of crop plants (including energy plants);

 

　　Target 3, Germplasm innovation and use of new high-photosynthetic-efficiency oil crop plants;

 

　　Target 4, Microalgae photosynthetic hydrogen;

 

　　Target 5, Bionic research of photosynthesis and photosynthetic solar battery.

 

　　Strategic path II: biomass energy and energy plants.

 

　　This strategic path provides scientific and technological planning of biomass energy resources with coverage of screening high-quality and high-efficiency energy plant resources to establish breeding and production bases of energy plants in different geographical areas; exploring biological mechanisms of efficient energy conversion and storage of energy plants and germplasm innovation and system optimization a of large scale planting energy plants and production of bio-energy; meanwhile, establishing a sound theory and technology integrative system of biomass energy conversion and application to improve the grade of biomass energy so that large-scale commercial application of biomass energy will be realized. The strategic paths include:

 

　　Target 1, To establish germplasm resource repositories, information databases and a evaluation and discovery system of energy plants (micro-organisms). The breeding and reproduction bases of energy plants will be well designed and established in different regions of China, and plant cultivation, processing, and production systems will be optimized;

 

　　Target 2, Research programs of biological mechanisms of efficient energy conversion and storage of energy plants will be initiated by the means of modern biotechnology, to improve and innovate the new germplasm and varieties of energy plants with high conversion efficiency, better resistance, wide adaptability in different regions;

 

　　Target 3, To establish economical and affordable system of biomass energy technology to optimize vaporization and liquefaction of biomass, the production systems of fuel ethanol, and biodiesel;

 

　　Target 4, To establish sound theory and technology integration of biomass energy conversion and commercial application to improve the grade of biomass energy, and achieve large-scale commercial application of biomass energy resources.

 

　　Strategic path III: exploration and utilization of microbial resources.

 

　　Microbial resources are the important material foundation of human existence and development and the origin of biotechnology innovation. The research of life sciences, preventive medicine, food science, biotechnology R & D and bio-industrialization are all built on the basis of microbial resources. On basis of status quo of biotechnology development and exploitation & utilization of the microbial resources in China, it is necessary to strengthen capacity building a systematic scheme of research and development of microbial resources and related industry chains to upgrade China’s competitiveness in the word’s biological industry. The strategic paths include:

 

　　Target 1, Cellulosic ethanol production;

 

　　Target 2, Alcohol fuels production by cyanobacteria;

 

　　Target 3, Hydrogen production by biological photolysis;

 

　　Target 4, Environmental remediation;

 

　　Target 5, Carbon cycle and carbon sequestration;

 

　　Target 6, High-efficient physico-/bio-chemical transformation of agricultural Wastes;

 

　　Target 7, Technology and process of biomass-based materials to replace chemical raw materials;

 

　　Target 8, Screening and industrial manufacturing of microbial natural products;

 

　　Target 9, Recycling and industry Chain System;

 

　　Target 10, Omics analyses of function microorganisms and metabolic network models;

 

　　Target 11, Technology platforms system of synthetic biology and systems biology.

 

　　Strategic path IV: exploration and sustainable use of strategic biological resources.

 

　　Bioresources are the most important renewable resource on earth, as well as the important strategic resources for a county. Research must be strengthened on Chinese unique strategic bioresources to prevent species extinction. The efforts should be made to conserve and utilize our strategic bioresources, meanwhile, to rationally layout biological industry in China’s vast non-farming marginal land. The strategies will provide implementation measures to the safeguard and sustainable use of biological resources to support bio-energy, agriculture & forestry, ecological & environment restoration and medicine & health that are in high priority of development of national economy and society. The strategic paths include:

 

　　Target 1, Centurial inventory, natural reserves assessment, and capacity building of exploration and innovation of biological resources;

 

　　Target 2, Genomic conservation, functional genes discovery and function verification, and breeding improvement of the important strategic biological resources;

 

　　Target 3, Formation, evolutionary change and maintaining mechanisms of biodiversity, and resources exploration and germplasm innovation;

 

　　Target 4, Evolutionary genomics of major life science issues and sustainable use of biological resources;

 

　　Target 5, Coevolution, maintaining mechanism of biodiversity and sustainable use of biological Resources;

 

　　Target 6, DNA barcodes and database of strategic biological resources.

 

　　Strategic path V: genome and genetic resources.

 

　　Facing to the development trend of both genomics and gene technology in the 21st century along with China’s situation, the strategic plans and efforts should focus on exploration of genome resources, bio-fuel molecules, recognition and improvement of molecular machines. Meanwhile, the research initiatives should be put forward to revealing the molecular machines of life-support systems and understanding regulatory mechanism of molecular machines. The integration system of theory and applied technology of systems biology should be established based on the genome database, gene expression database, and database of protein expression and gene assembly so that exploration of new biomass resources can be well achieved at the level of micro-molecular biology. The strategic paths include:

 

　　Target 1, Exploration of gene and genomic resources;

 

　　Target 2, Mechanism and technology integration of molecular machines;

 

　　Target 3, Bio-fuel molecular design;

 

　　Target 4, Theory and applied technology of systems biology.

 

　　Strategic path VI: biomimetic and bioinspired sciences & technologies.

 

　　Nature provides human being with intelligence in many other ways than human brain. The biological world exhibits numerous uniqueness in terms of its materials, structures and functions which provides inspiration for engineering designs and manufacturing, and is thus a knowledge reservoir of technological creations and innovations which is so far rarely touched by human being. By learning from nature, capturing inspiration from nature, one can discover and create new scientific principles, technological methods and routes. This leads to the emerging and fast revolution of a new scientific and technological field that has developed from bionics through biomimetics to bioinspired sciences and technologies. This new scientific and technological methodology aims to provide people with more reliable, more flexible, more energy- and cost-efficient, and more environment-friendly technologies and equipments. In order to promote the development of biomimetic and bioinspired sciences & technologies in China, a strategic development roadmap is proposed following a study on the international strategies and the state of the art in the field with major objectives proposed as follows:

 

　　Target 1, Promote the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, cognition sciences; optimize the knowledge base and structure of future scientists and engineers;

 

　　Target 2, Establish several dedicated platforms for new discoveries of biological systems and leading key laboratories for the research and development of biomimetic and bioinspired sciences & technologies;

 

　　Target 3, Make major breakthroughs in fundamental research, technological creation and innovation, industrialization and commercialization of biomimetic materials and technologies concerning energy, environment, sensing, processing, and information to meet the national strategic demand in the fields of materials, energy, environment, healthcare, information, public safety and national security;

 

　　Target 4, Revolutionize the philosophy of engineering designs and manufacturing through the development of biomimetic and bioinspired sciences & technologies with reliability, flexibility, energy and cost efficiency, environment-friendship as key evaluation standards.