Opinion: Instrument reagents can stimulate the economy

Introduction: In the short term, scientific research can stimulate local economies through the demand for instruments and reagents. Some international instrument companies can be very large, such as the annual sales of more than 3 billion US dollars, thousands of employees, the old Beckman company started from the pH meter, and the new instrument reagent company with annual sales of about 900 million US dollars, employees 10,000 of Life Technologies; has a tangible contribution to national and local economies.

Science has long-term and short-term effects on the national economy.

In the long run, science needs a certain scale, requires particularly good quality, needs to be adhered to, and will eventually provide a practical and more comprehensive boost to the national economy.

In the short term, scientific research can stimulate local economies through the demand for instruments and reagents. Some international instrument companies can be very large, such as annual sales of more than 3 billion US dollars, thousands of employees, the old Beckman company started from the pH meter, and the new instrument reagent company that sells about 900 million US dollars, thousands of employees LifeTechnologies There are also large reagent companies (such as Sigma Aldrich, which sells more than two billion U.S. dollars annually), and these companies have made tangible contributions to national and local economies. The conditions for promptly stimulating national and local economies through instrumental reagents are: The state must develop its own instruments and reagents.

Some problems exist

In the past, China was very poor and had no money to buy imported instruments and reagents, so it was forced to research and develop and produce. And there was a group of engineers and technicians who could develop and produce instrument reagents. Before 1990, China relied on domestic instrument reagents.

Now that China has developed its economy, it is not yet the world’s richest country. It is a strange phenomenon: a country that is not the richest nation does not make its own efforts to develop and produce instrumental reagents. When it comes to purchasing scientific instruments, it seems like money is too much to be spent. Large-scale, large-volume purchase of foreign instrument reagents, the profits handed over to the United States, Germany, Japan and other countries.

What's more, some units bought certain instruments of a certain year internationally at a big price and obtained a short-term "world first," and their profits have not yet reached time to offset their debts, and the purchased instruments have been replaced. Such a unit has been running for many years in the form of large holes and small holes on the mainland or Hong Kong.

In my informed life sciences, Japan is not only far ahead of China in science, but has always been instrument-oriented and insists on its own R&D and production. Therefore, Japan’s scientific research has immediate positive feedback on its economy.

In the past decade or so, China’s scientific community has been eager for quick success. Various evaluations have been led by SCI. For the benefit of the moment, all units are rushing toward it.

R&D and production of instrument reagents, developers and producers themselves cannot contribute large amounts of SCI. The process of R&D of the instrument is slow and there are not many papers to be published. If the instrument reagents are used well, many people will use them. These people have many articles. It is not appropriate to use SCI to evaluate R&D and producers. These principles are very simple. Therefore, all departments and units that want immediate results and those who want to use scientific research as their political achievements will not strongly support them.

In fact, successfully developing instruments can have great scientific significance and certain economic value. The technological advancement represented by some instruments not only stimulates the economy but also is essential to the progress of key sciences.

Some state departments have discussed domestic instrument reagents, but the support may not be sufficient.

Some “experts” who obtained the power through the SCI did not fully consider the country and continued to allocate funds based on the SCI, which is also not conducive to stimulate the production of domestic instrumental reagents.

Under such circumstances, there are not many domestic units that can really innovate on the instrument. However, although Beijing and Shanghai are very few, domestic companies are not without R&D equipment, such as:

Huazhong University of Science and Technology has special expertise in instrument research and development, especially the use of optical imaging in life sciences.

Possible partial solution

Everyone can have better ideas to solve these problems. I think that this is not only the responsibility of the national and instrument reagent production departments, but that everyone can do certain work to solve the instrument reagent problems at different levels.

Relevant departments of the state should find ways to discover and support some units and individuals that can independently research and develop scientific research instruments. They also need to change their policies, improve their evaluation systems and incentives, and stimulate some units and individuals who have R&D capabilities but do not actively research and develop, so that they have time to develop. , gradually solve the problem of instrument reagents for China, at least, China's own manufacturers should try to occupy a considerable market of domestic instrument reagents.

Every unit purchasing instruments must pursue practicality rather than expensive and brand new models. When life science research institutes and some hospitals purchase expensive instruments such as mass spectrometers, they need to know how much they can use and whether their own units can provide technical support. According to people who understand the technology, it is estimated that more than half of domestic mass spectrometers and nuclear magnetic resonance NMR instruments do not have much effect, and some units can't maintain their operations and they still do the same. The main role they play is to visit outsiders and pay their respects internally. The US is well-funded. The leaders of the HHMI (Hughes Medical Institute) have been “impressed” by the Chinese investing money in investing in instruments. If the Martians came to observe the purchase of instruments, they would consider China to be the richest person in the world.

Teachers and postgraduates in each task group need to know which instrument reagents are economical and practical substitutes. It is better not to buy foreign kits. The DNA preparations commonly used in molecular biology, for most applications, do not require the use of various kits for DNA preparation, as long as PEG precipitates (only a few cases, such as the introduction of animal and human DNA, require kits); for transfected cells , Often with their own, the standard pH of calcium phosphate can, and without the need for kits. This knowledge has gradually disappeared, because many teachers are using kits, and do not know that you can save money.

In the end, give advice to people who can’t find a job or are unwilling to do research, but are willing to do business: Perhaps you can start a company in China and label some products that are cheap and good with some sort of kit. In the name, it can compete with more expensive kits abroad. Exactly whether PEG, calcium phosphate, I may be outdated, you can certainly come up with better products, because it is really cheap, so you can beat more expensive foreign products.