China's top 10 advances in life sciences in 2021 unveiled

Chinese scientist Cai Tao shows a sample of synthesized starch at a lab on Sept. 16, 2021.

Photo by Jin Liwang, Xinhua

The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) has released the country's 10 most significant advances in the field of life sciences in 2021.

Among the other breakthroughs on the list, a study on synthesizing starch from carbon dioxide stood out.

Chinese scientists have developed an artificial method of synthesizing starch from carbon dioxide, the first of its kind globally. The promising study is expected to help realize starch workshop production and provides a new technical route for synthesizing complex molecules from carbon dioxide.

Other key advances include studies in cross-species infection and transmission of coronavirus, adjuvant therapy in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma, vertebrate water-to-land evolutionary pathway, route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice, climate-driven flyway changes and memory-based long-distance migration, and morphological diversity of single neurons in molecularly defined cell types.

CAST has compiled this list every year since 2015.