China races to build record biobank to rival US efforts

His lab is part of a rapidly growing network of biobanks — huge repositories of biomedical data and biological samples like blood, saliva and cells that form the backbone of drugs research. The sector has emerged as a new front in geopolitical rivalry, with many biobanks backed by the Chinese government as it attempts to challenge Western dominance of the global bioresearch economy set to be worth trillions of dollars. For Chinese scientists, having access to homegrown biobanks could accelerate the advance of biotechnology companies and cement the country’s place as a global innovation powerhouse, but it is a complex…