Research

Since its establishment, the Institute has successfully completed 11 projects of the 863 Program, two projects of the National Science and Technology Support Program, five projects of the Eleventh Five-Year National Major Research Program, one project of the Key Program for International S&T Cooperation Projects of China, one project of the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars, 19 projects of the Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, and 17 projects of the Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Research Projects.

Currently the staff of the Institute are undertaking four sub-topics of the National 973 Program, five projects of the 12th Five-Year National Major Research Program, 13 projects of the Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, two projects of the Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China, 6 projects of the Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Research Projects, and other 5 items.

Research Platform

The main fields of research consist of genomics, functional genomics, synthetic biology, microarray, bioinformatics, molecular virology and other associated subjects. The research platforms are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, including:

Argus Genome Optical Mapping Workstation
Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM)
Illumina Genome AnalyzerIIx
ABI 3730 DNA Sequence Analyzer
ABI 7300 Real Time PCR System
ABI 4700 Proteomics Discovery System (MALDI-TOF-TOF)
LCQ Advertage MAX LC-MS
BECKMAN P/ACE MDQ Capillary Electrophoresis System
6820 Gas Chromatography Equipment
ABI BioCAD700E Protein Purification Workstation
Bio - Rad Two-Dimensional Electrophoresis System
Biochip Spotting System PE SpotArray 72
Biochip Spotting System Bio-Dot AD5000
Biochip Scanner Genepix Personal 4100A
Bio-Plex Protein Array System
Affymetrix GeneChip® Scanner 3000 MegAllel™ 7G plus System
SUN V880 Server
Dawn EP480 Server
SGI Altix 350 Server
Bio - Rad PDQuest Software
GA-Plot Software
VirtualGenome Software

Achievements

To date, the Institute has published 161 peer reviewed articles in the field of microbiology with a total impact factor of 538.614 (till Oct 16, 2012). The Institute has achieved significant progress in genomics and functional genomics as witnessed with the publications of three high-level scientific papers of two in NATURE (Nature, IF 31.434) and one in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” (PNAS, IF 9.598). The Institute has also published a review paper in FEMS Microbiology Reviews (IF 9.250), one paper in PLoS Pathogens (IF 9.079), one paper in Genome Biology (IF 9.036), one paper in Nucleic Acids Research” (IF 8.026) , and six papers in PLoS ONE (IF 4.411), etc.

In April 2008, the article “The draft genome of the transgenic tropical fruit tree papaya (Carica papaya Linnaeus)” was published in NATURE as the cover story.

In December 2007, the article “Methane oxidation by an extremely acidophilic bacterium of the phylum Verrucomicrobia.” Was published in NATURE.

In March 2007, the article “Genome and proteome of long-chain alkane degrading Geobacillus thermodenitrificans NG80-2 isolated from a deep-subsurface oil reservoir” in PNAS.

There were seven PCT patents applied with three of them has been granted; 156 domestic invention patents have been applied, among them 99 have been granted.