Photo: Science and Technology Daily
China’s first 20K solid-phase gene chip for Brassica napus, codenamed “Zhongxin Oil No. 1,” has been formally launched by the Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences in collaboration with Huazhong Agricultural University and Suzhou Lasuo Biochip Technology Co, China’s Science and Technology Daily reported on Thursday. The launch breaks the practically 20-year foreign monopoly on solid-phase gene chip know-how, and this breakthrough marks the transition of China’s rapeseed breeding {industry}’s from conventional “weather-dependent” strategies to a brand new period of precision “smart breeding,” per the report.
According to the report, the solid-phase chip recognizing course of had lengthy been monopolized by a handful of US corporations, which maintained extraordinarily tight technological blockades. Over six years, the Chinese analysis workforce compiled greater than 1,600 experimental notebooks, wrote over 2,700 experimental reviews, and picked up greater than 10 million scanning pictures. Yet the failure price reached 99.9 pert, with 80 billion microbeads scrapped.
The turning level got here in 2024 by industry-academia-research collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nanjing University. A gaggle of daring younger scientists – born between the Nineteen Nineties and 1995s – lastly turned the recognizing course of from blueprint to actuality, giving “Zhongxin Oil No. 1” a stable basis.
In 2025, the analysis workforce led by from the National Rapeseed Improvement Center at Huazhong Agricultural University took the lead in offering a considerable amount of essential gene locus info. Subsequently, Chief Scientist Hua Wei from the Oil Crops Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences additionally joined the trouble, increasing the variety of gene loci from 1000’s to twenty,000 — practically masking all common analysis wants and making a complete “gene dictionary” for rapeseed.
To combine this “dictionary” into the chip, the analysis workforce established a high-frequency communication mechanism with enterprise to bridge the hole between technological breakthroughs and industrial software. Officially launched in October 2025, the small chip “Zhongxin Oil No. 1” carries greater than 17,000 genome-wide background markers and greater than 1,500 useful loci.
“Breeding a new variety used to take up to 10 years. Now it can be shortened to as little as three years. A single test costs only 25 yuan and results are available within 72 hours,” Li Shuyu, a researcher on the Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was quoted as saying within the report.
“Zhongxin Oil No. 1” is only the start. According to the report, model 2.0 is already in preparation and can include 60,000 gene loci. Meanwhile, a product matrix masking main livestock similar to pigs, chickens, cattle and sheep, in addition to key crops together with wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and rapeseed, has taken form.
Global Times