Special Report: COVID opens new doors for China’s gene giant – Reuters

BGI Group, described in one 2015 study as “Goliath” in the fast-growing field of genomics research, is using an opening created by the pandemic to expand its footprint globally. In the past six months, it says it has sold 35 million rapid COVID-19 testing kits to 180 countries and built 58 labs in 18 countries. Some of the equipment has been donated by BGI’s philanthropic arm, promoted by China’s embassies in an extension of China’s virus diplomacy.

But as well as test kits, the company is distributing gene-sequencing technology that U.S. security officials say could threaten national security. This is a sensitive area globally. Sequencers are used to analyse genetic material, and can unlock powerful personal information.

In science journals and online, BGI is calling on international health researchers to send in virus data generated on its equipment, as well as patient samples that have tested positive for COVID-19, to be shared publicly via China’s government-funded National GeneBank.

Source: Special Report: COVID opens new doors for China’s gene giant – Reuters


The article was originally published here!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pier 1 Closing All Stores For Good, Cites ‘New Reality, Uncertainty Of Post-COVID World’

Image
Pier 1 Imports has become the latest retailer knocked against the ropes by the “new reality” of online shopping and finished off by COVID-19. Nearly 60 years after its first store opened — and three months after filing for bankruptcy — the company announced Tuesday that it wants to close all retail operations “as soon as reasonably possible.” The explosion in online shopping, intense competition from larger chains and the coronavirus pandemic “are requiring us to wind down,” Robert Riesbeck, Pier 1’s chief executive and chief financial officer, said in a statement. “This decision follows months of working to identify a buyer who would continue to operate our business going forward,” Riesbeck said. Source: Pier 1 Closing All Stores For Good, Cites ‘New Reality, Uncertainty Of Post-COVID World’ The article was originally published here!
Read more

Republican gubernatorial candidate, a physician, goes to court to stop youth COVID vaccinations

Scott Jensen, a prominent Minnesota Republican candidate for governor with a track record of COVID-19 theories not shared by the medical community, has signed onto an effort to stop vaccinations for 12- to 16-year-olds. Jensen, a family physician from Chaska who served in the state Senate from 2017 to 2021, is the first named plaintiff in a petition filed in federal court in Alabama by America’s Frontline Doctors, a group that has attempted to diminish the pandemic that has killed more than 590,000 Americans and pushed misleading and false information about the coronavirus, its lethality and debunked treatments and preventions, such as the use of hydroxychloroquine. The group’s leader, Simone Gold, was among those who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection that sought to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory over then-President Donald Trump, Gold has confirmed to the Washington Post . She was later arrested and faces charges of entering a restric...
Read more