Remember EHEC? This aggressive and highly contagious "cucumber"
bacterium kept Europe on the edge as reports came in that thousands
infected themselves with large outbreaks located in Germany. In the
end, it appeared that cucumbers were not carrying the germ after
all causing particular outrage among Dutch and Spanish farmers who
suffered heavy revenue losses.
Focus on health care, agriculture,
bio-energy
An early breakthrough in assessing the EHEC threat was achieved
by two research teams in China and Germany. The Beijing Genomics
Institute (BGI) with its large scale high tech equipment managed to
sequence the genes of the bacterium within a
few days. The very same institute has now opened its first sequencing center in
Copenhagen.
BGI's new European outpost is located at the Copenhagen Bio
Science Park (COBIS)
and will cooperate closely with Copenhagen University and a number
of other renowned Danish research institutes. The operations will
be run on a 1.200 m2 area with 10 Illumina HiSeq 2000
sequencers.
In the past, BGI contributed significantly to the Human Genome
Project (HGP).
Now, this expertise will be applied to the task of genetically
mapping 1% of the Danish population. Furthermore, BGI aims at
identifying certain pathogens, an important towards a vaccine for
cancer.
Sino-Danish cooperation
Backing this new Sino-Danish cooperation, the local government
hopes to facilitate significant advances in the treatment of cancer
and metabolic diseases. Speaking at the opening, Piao Olsen Dyhr,
Danish Minister for Trade and Investment, said that "Scientific and
commercial breakthroughs here in the BGI genome research center
will be the best way of attracting further attention to
Denmark."
Yang Huanming, Co-founder and Chairman of BGI added: "I am very
confident this joint institute will contribute a lot to genomics in
Denmark, in Europe, and over the whole world. This center will play
an important role in life sciences and industry in Denmark and
Europe."