The Big DNA Grab
Gryphon Scientific, Feb 14, 2019: Through investments and research partnerships with US institutions, Chinese biotechnology companies are .. amassing large collections of clinical and genetic data on US residents (and everyone else).
Epoch Times: China’s state-funded BGI, for example, bought the U.S. sequencing company Complete Genomics, giving the Chinese company access to a DNA database that contained the private genetic information of large numbers of Americans.
Gryphon Scientific: At least 23 companies with a nexus to China are certified .. by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), giving them direct access to US medical and health data. .. Theoretically, access to private information on security-sensitive US persons creates a risk of blackmail and may reveal health conditions exploitable in a targeted attack.
China has numerous laws requiring or authorizing access to private-sector data by the central government.
Reuters: BGI says it stores and re-analyzes left-over blood samples and genetic data from .. prenatal tests, sold in at least 52 countries. The tests – branded NIFTY for “Non-Invasive Fetal TrisomY” – also capture genetic information about the mother.
One BGI study fused a military supercomputer to re-analyze NIFTY data and map the prevalence of viruses in Chinese women, look for indicators of mental illness in them, and single out Tibetan and Uyghur minorities to find links between their genes and their characteristics.
(That’s taking the politics out - by taking the genes out.)
Gryphon Scientific: BGI has received state support, including a ten-year, $1.5 billion loan from China Development Bank in 2010, which enabled it to purchase 128 HiSeq 2000 sequencers (from Illumina).
Wellcome: More recently in a collaboration with Illumina, our WGS500 project, aimed to get a sense how whole genome sequencing could impact on clinical medicine.
(powering the heroes (Wellcome/BGI) working around the clock .. to conduct surveillance .. for years to come …)
Gryphon Scientific: BGI is a world leader in sequencing, and has at times had the world’s largest capacity (in terms of amount of DNA sequence produced), often vying for the top spot with US-based Illumina.
Huanming Yang, Chairman and Co-Founder of BGI (2012): BGI greatly welcomes this opportunity to partner with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to bring the benefit of genomics research to our global society.
Dark Daily: (2016): BGI was among 70 organizations, including the Broad Institute of MIT, Harvard, the Wellcome Trust, and the National Institutes of Health, that formed an alliance “to improve how genomic and clinical data are managed and shared.” .. (A) planning meeting drew experts from Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
"The industry participants responded enthusiastically to the idea of a global alliance," the group's whitepaper said.
Gryphon Scientific: Other top genomics companies in China include WuXi NextCODE, Novogene, and CloudHealth Genomics.(p108) WuXi NextCODE arose from the acquisition of US-based NextCODE Health by WuXi PharmaTech. The company provides an online database and platform for genomics data as well as sequencing services; further, it boasts the first sequencing facility in China to be accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP).
Scripps Research: Scripps Research Board of Directors .. Ge Li, PhD (Columbia), Founder, Chairman and CEO WuXi AppTec
Kristian Andersen/Scripps (Prox O lead-author): At the Andersen Lab at Scripps Research we try to understand .. how viruses emerge, spread, evolve. .. (by) using an integrated approach of computation, experimentation, genomics, and large-scale data.
Andersen/Rambaut/Holmes/Nature: We urge those working on infectious disease to focus funds and efforts on .. proactive, real-time surveillance of human populations.
Prof. Lisa Ikemoto, law/ethics: People are now being mined for their raw materials. It raises concerns about what it means to be human in this world.
Reuters: A research study conducted by a (Curtin) faculty member that helps Chinese facial recognition software better identify ethnic Uyghurs by the academic Wanquan Liu and co-authors at Chinese universities in 2018 .. had breached its ethics code.
Wanquan Liu, Curtin Uni, Aus: (F)ace recognition has great application potential in border control, customs check, and public security.
Reuters: The incident is the latest in a spate of controversies involving Chinese ethnic profiling research on Uyghurs .. under heavy surveillance by authorities in .. Xinjiang.
China denies all accusations of mistreatment or discrimination in Xinjiang.