Biotech booms in China
nature.com
Biotech booms in China
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Re: Biotech booms in China
#2Here's something to add to the discussion. China was the first nation to approve a gene therapy for use in Humans. I don't know if it is effective or not.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt0104-3 (over a decade old)
Re: Biotech booms in China
#3This does not seem good.
The world has never really reconciled the biological and chemical atrocities that went on in Asia during WWII and since, like they have in Europe. The Japanese used chemical gas attacks (munitions of unexploded gas are still found in China today) and did live vivesections on prisoners, amputating their appendages until there was nothing left. Hitler’s SS thought the atrocities so bad in China they asked for permission to intervene at several points. I doubt China has forgotten any of this, as they are expanding funding by several orders of magnitude into research on Japanese WWII atrocities.
To the north, Russia supposedly developed a type of chemical weapon even more powerful than nerve gas at one point in the 70’s. After the Cold War, while everyone was worried about nuclear weapons, Soviet bio and chemical scientists were easily available for hire and research. The Japanese cult that dumped Sarin into the Tokyo subway in 1996 had gotten far towards procuring many nerve agents as well as biological agents this way (developing powder to spread live agents that survived for weeks proved too difficult though).
Everyone talks about nuclear weapons, but biological, and to a lesser degree chemical, weapons have been under the radar for so long, governed by treaties that intellectually are still in 1918, that this needs to be looked at very seriously.
Re: Biotech booms in China
#4Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.
At the same time, it seems like for biotech to have an explosion akin to the last fifty years explosion of computer technology, one would have to find a way to well and truly automate the processes involved. Last I looked, a vast amount of research is very much by hand, injecting drug into animal by hand, putting liquids in beakers by hand etc.
And part of it is living creatures are all different, and not just different in the two rocks on a beach or two toys out of a cheap mold are different. Living creatures, even two instance of the same creature, have functioning subsystems that function differently. And this is a multi-dimensional thing [1] . Custom tailored therapies attempt to take this into account but so far seem to have generally failed. I would speculate this is because humans have more than two or dimensions of difference between, even in subsystems like the immune system.
Edit: using AI to combine information on these systems that seem intractable in themselves also sounds promising - still many problem there also.
[1] Biochemical Individuality, Roger J. Williams
Re: Biotech booms in China
#5Here's something to add to the discussion. China was the first nation to approve a gene therapy for use in Humans. I don't know if it is effective or not. https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt0104-3 (over a decade old)
The same reason they're the first to work with CRISPR in humans, despite the US having a formerly vast R&D lead.
It's because they're fundamentally a lot less concerned about killing people in the process. There's a reasonable debate to be had on whether the US is too concerned with the risk aspect of making progress on biotech.
Re: Biotech booms in China
#6With the aging baby boomer populations of the UN Security Council it is going to be an interesting next couple of decades. So much brain power will be devoted to global health.
Re: Biotech booms in China
#7Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US. At the same time, it seems like for biotech to have an explosion akin to the last fifty years explosion of computer technology, one would have to find a way to well and truly automate the processes involved. Last I looked, a vast amount of research is very much by hand, injecting drug into animal by hand, putting liquids in…
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Re: Biotech booms in China
#8A couple of years back there was a paralyzed guy who went to China and got stem cell injections and was able to walk again. He did an AMA on reddit and the whole thing was full of people gaslighting him that he wasn't really paralyzed, or it wasn't really permanent, or he wasn't really healed, etc. Then we did it in the U.S a couple years later and claimed we're the first. Gibson's observation that "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed" applies here.
Re: Biotech booms in China
#9This does not seem good. The world has never really reconciled the biological and chemical atrocities that went on in Asia during WWII and since, like they have in Europe. The Japanese used chemical gas attacks (munitions of unexploded gas are still found in China today) and did live vivesections on prisoners, amputating their appendages until there was nothing left. Hitler’s SS thought the atrocities so bad in China…
Isn't it possible that less regulation can help propel research, for "good" goals? I think that in 2018, novel medical applications would be far more profitable than a biological weapons, and in the end of the day, that's what matters to companies.
For example, I'm not sure that in USA it would be possible for a terminally ill patient can opt-in to a dangerous/risky/experimental new form of treatment, while it could save thousands of others if successful.
Re: Biotech booms in China
#10This does not seem good. The world has never really reconciled the biological and chemical atrocities that went on in Asia during WWII and since, like they have in Europe. The Japanese used chemical gas attacks (munitions of unexploded gas are still found in China today) and did live vivesections on prisoners, amputating their appendages until there was nothing left. Hitler’s SS thought the atrocities so bad in China…
Isn't it possible that less regulation can help propel research, for "good" goals? I think that in 2018, novel medical applications would be far more profitable than a biological weapons, and in the end of the day, that's what matters to companies. For example, I'm not sure that in USA it would be possible for a terminally ill patient can opt-in to a dangerous/risky/experimental new form of treatment, while it could…
Even if the patient themselves agrees to the experimental treatment, but then dies, maybe even in a gruesome manner, is it still possible for the patient's family to sue the biotech startup for large sums of money?