The local standard of Liaoning Province “Analysis of Compositions in Marine Microalgae: Ninth Part: Determination of Ash”, which was drafted by DICP this year, was recently reported to be authorized to publish. This standard is a part of the series of standard “Analysis of Compositions in Marine Microalgae”, the first part of which “Determination of neutral lipid” was published last year.
Marine microalgae are the main sources of primary productivity in marine environment. Their high photosynthetic efficiency, fast growth rate, freshwater-saving while cultivation, and varieties of natural products accumulated in cells entails them great potential for application in the field of aquiculture, bioenergy generation, food and medical industries, and so on. The ash content in marine microalgal biomass varies from different algal species, cultivation conditions, and harvesting methods. However, up to now, no standard determination method has been developed for ash content assay in marine microalgae, which is inimical to the microalgal product quality control and the evaluation of the target product content in biomass, thereby restricts the sustainable development of marine microalgae industry.
Combined with the advanced technologies in substance analysis at DICP, Marine Bioengineering Group (1812) established the first domestic local standard on ash content determination in marine microalgae with its more than 10 years’ research experience on microalgae. This standard has specified the operational procedure on ash content assay based on thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), which makes the determination of ash content in marine microalgal biomass fast and accurate with trace sample required (no more than 20 mg).
The publication of this standard will definitely facilitate the quality control of marine microalgae-related products. Marine Bioengineering Group (1812) will continue to dedicate to the accomplishment of the series of standard on the analysis of other compositions in marine microalgae, and establish the “Technical Subcommittee of Algal Products Standardization of Liaoning Province” for the promotion of the local and domestic marine microalgal industry.

On Nov. 19, 2014, the inaugural meeting for China Electrical Equipment Industrial Association（CEEIAs）- Fuel Cell was held at Beijing. Prof. Gongquan Sun was elected to serve as the president.

Invited by Prof.Shengli Yang (academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering), the vice president of Zhengzhou University and the president of First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Prof. Quancheng Kan and his colleagues Prof. Jie Zhao, Prof. Xinzheng Yan, Prof. Yi Zhang and Prof. Yuming Xu as well as Prof. Zhihai Qin from Institute of Biophysics, CAS visited DICP, CAS on Nov. 18. Prof. Tao Zhang met the delegation.
Prof. Kan et al. visited some research groups of Biotechnology Department and then took part in the scientific workshop held in the Biotechnology building conference hall presided by Prof. Yang. Prof. Kan briefly introduced the basic status of his hospital. Subsequently, Prof. Guowang Xu gave a brief talk on Biotechnology Department and metabolomic applications in translational medicine. After that, Profs. Mingliang Ye, Lihua Zhang, Jianhua Qin, Ling Yang and Weiting Yu showed the recent advances of modified proteomics, quantitative proteomics, microfluidic chip, drug metabolism and biological micro/nano capsule technology in platform development and translational medicine applications in DICP. The host and guest also discussed the topics of common interest and made a rough framework for bilateral cooperation. At the end of the forum, scientists of Biotechnology Department were invited and agreed to visit the hospital in December to decide the concrete cooperation fields and themes.
This workshop aims to take the advantage of the techniques in DICP, to cooperate with domestic first-class medical institutes to solve serious clinical problems. It can be expected that this kind of communication will promote applications of metabolomics, proteomics, microfluidic chip, drug safety evaluation, etc. in translational medicine.
The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University is the biggest 3A hospital in Henan Province. It integrates functions of clinical medication, medical education, scientific research, disease prevention, health care and recovery. The hospital is famous for its extraordinary medical strength, scientific achievement and broad international communication. At present, the hospital has two medical campuses (River and Zhengdong Medical campus). The River Medical campus has 88 clinical departments, 135 medical units and 7000 beds and receives more than 4 million patients per year. More than 300 thousand in-hospital patients are cycled and over 150 thousand operations are conducted annually.

To let the young scientists and students have better chromatography-related knowledge, a series of educational tutorials on the theoretical and practical aspects of modern liquid phase separation techniques were held in the DICP, CAS on Nov.10-14, 2014. Invited by Prof. Guowang Xu, Dr. Gerard Rozing gave these tutorials. The contents included: 1) fundamentals, optimization and practical aspects of (U)HPLC as well as how to find the best column and conditions for (U)HPLC and optimization in particular Kinetic Plot method; 2) column technology for UHPLC. totally porous vs. superficially porous particles as well as instrumental aspects, practice and constraints of UHPLC; 3) Multidimensional HPLC; 4) how to optimize your (U)HPLC separation for optimal coupling with mass spectrometry; 5) CE-MS with coaxial sheath flow interface, practical aspects, and new CE-MS IF developments.
About fifty young researchers attended the tutorials, and finally 20 students for MS or PhD degree took final examination to get a credit for the course. Through this training, the participants achieve a deeper insight and understanding on the modern liquid phase separation techniques, which will be helpful for their future work.
Dr. Gerard Rozing is a famous chromatographist. Since 2000, he became Agilent Technologies University Relations and External Scientific Collaborations Manager, In 2006 he became Agilent Technologies Research Fellow. He retired on Sept. 1, 2012,. (Text: Xianzhe Shi, Photo: Xiaoli Hou).
 

An executive team from BASF, led by Dr. Peter Schuhmacher, the vice president of BASF and Dr. Frank Chen, the president of BASF Asia Pacific, visited DICP on October 27th and 28th. Prof. Tao Zhang, the director of DICP, expressed his warm welcome to BASF guests and Prof. Zhongmin Liu, the deputy director of DICP, hosted the meeting and panel discussion. The visit of the BASF team is to learn about the recent progresses of DICP in the technological fields of coal-based chemical production, energy storage and CO2 utilization etc., and to seek for opportunities for further collaboration.
During the meeting, Prof. Rui Cai gave an introduction on the developing strategies and recent research progress of our institute. Prof. Zhongmin Liu, Prof. Xinhe Bao, Prof. Xiulian Pan, Prof. Zhongshan Yuan and Dr. Haijun Yu presented the recent achievements on coal-based chemical production, C-H bond activation and methane conversion, syngas and CO2 conversion, methanation reaction, and membrane separation of CO2, respectively.
During the visit, BASF guests toured Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy after the meeting and discussed in-depth with researchers on the above research topics.
BASF, headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany is one of the largest chemical companies in the world and owns 160 affiliated companies in 41 countries across Europe, Asia and America. Its products and technologies ranging from chemicals, plastics, specialized products, agricultural protection products, oil refineries and many other areas. The company aims to create chemistry for a sustainable future.(Text/Photo SHI Ying)

On Oct. 31, Marine Science and Technology Award Ceremony was hold in Nanjing. Natural Products & Oligosaccharide Engineering group of our institute was awarded the first prize due to their achievements in the field of “oligosaccharides agricultural agent development and application”.
Oligosaccharides derived from marine natural products have functions in defense induction and growth promotion of plants and animals. Natural Products & Oligosaccharide Engineering group has been focusing on R&D of natural oligosaccharide as agricultural agents.
They have successfully developed a green and cleaning oligosaccharide production process and production line. They have developed several oligosaccharides-based biopesticides and feed additives and obtained nine registration certificates. Their contributions also include the building up of products standards. Development of marine oligosaccharide biological agents is significant on the exploiting of marine biological resources, solving of food safety issues, environmental protection.
Marine Science and Technology Award was established by Chinese Society for Oceanography, Pacific Society of China, Chinese Society for Oceanology and Limnology, and managed by State Oceanic Administration, the People's Republic of China. The award is a national science and technology award for marine industry. It is established to award the team and individuals for their outstanding contributions in the field of marine scientific research, marine technological innovation and development, marine scientific and technological achievements application, and so on.(Text/ Photo WANG Wenxia)