Monkey-brain examine with hyperlink to China’s army roils high European college

A Chinese professor on the University of Copenhagen performed genetic analysis with the Chinese army with out disclosing the connection, the college informed Reuters, within the newest instance of how China’s pursuit of military-civilian know-how is tapping into Western academia within the strategically delicate space of biotechnology.
The professor, Guojie Zhang, can be employed by Shenzhen-based genomics large BGI Group, which funds dozens of researchers on the college and has its European headquarters on the college’s campus.
Zhang and a scholar he was supervising labored with a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) laboratory on analysis exposing monkeys to excessive altitude to review their brains and develop new medicine to stop mind injury – a precedence the PLA has recognized for Chinese troops working on excessive plateau borders.
Zhang co-published that paper with a PLA main basic in January 2020. At the time the examine was revealed, the college was “not familiar with the fact that the paper also included authors from Chinese military research institutions,” Niels Kroer, head of its biology division, informed Reuters in an e mail.
Zhang confirmed that he didn’t inform the college of the hyperlink as a result of the college didn’t require researchers to report co-authors on scientific papers to it, which the college confirmed. BGI mentioned the examine with the PLA lab “was not carried out for military purposes” and mind analysis is a essential space for understanding human ailments. China’s authorities science academy mentioned the examine had nationwide defence and civilian advantages on the Tibetan plateau.
Concerns about China’s fusion of army and civilian know-how, and about universities transferring delicate know-how to China that would assist its army, have grown within the United States lately. Washington agreed final month to work with the European Union on the problem underneath a brand new joint know-how and commerce council. A US Department of Defense report on China’s army energy this month flagged concern over Beijing utilizing biotechnology to reinforce its troopers’ efficiency.
The Danish incident, reported right here for the primary time, exhibits how China’s pursuit of biotechnology with a army use has additionally turn into a difficulty for universities in Europe.
The European Commission says it’s growing pointers on “tackling foreign interference” at larger schooling establishments; a 2020 report from the Leiden Asia Centre, an unbiased group affiliated with Leiden University within the Netherlands, discovered at the least 5 international locations in Europe had issues in regards to the dangers of analysis collaboration with China. Some universities, together with Copenhagen, have lengthy had shut science ties to China.
Copenhagen college and two giant Danish foundations who funded a few of Zhang’s work mentioned they found China’s army was concerned solely after one of many foundations noticed it had been credited, incorrectly, with financing the monkey examine. The work was funded by the Chinese authorities and army, the paper mentioned.
The discovery got here as Denmark’s intelligence company, PET, warned Danish universities in May of the nationwide safety dangers of being unwittingly concerned in international army analysis, citing “a number of espionage activities and other foreign interference,” and a scholar who co-authored analysis into 5G know-how with an engineer from a Chinese army college. It declined to touch upon particular instances.
The Chinese Academy of Science, the place Zhang additionally has a genetics lab, mentioned of the examine on the time that mind injury and demise brought on by excessive altitude on the Tibetan plateau had severely hindered “national defence construction.”
Denmark’s Ministry of Higher Education and Science declined to touch upon the altitude examine, however mentioned export management guidelines apply to some know-how that can be utilized for each civilian and army functions. The Danish Business Authority mentioned most sorts of gene know-how usually are not on its export management record.
The ministry mentioned it had launched a broad evaluation of the dangers of worldwide analysis cooperation, led by high college heads, to conclude initially of subsequent yr.
The University of Copenhagen expects the evaluation of “ethical and security policy limits” for collaboration will end in new guidelines for universities – and higher concentrate on the dangers, its deputy director for analysis and innovation Kim Brinckmann informed Reuters in an e mail.
“We are very proud to have Prof. Zhang … as one of our very highly performing researchers,” he mentioned. The college didn’t reply to a query about how a lot funding BGI gives it.
China’s international ministry mentioned it urged Danish establishments to “abandon ideological prejudice and end groundless accusations and smears,” and deal with their analysis cooperation rationally “to accrue positive energy in the development of bilateral relations and practical cooperation.”
Altitude
Zhang and the pinnacle of the PLA laboratory for high-altitude analysis, Major General Yuqi Gao, designed the examine, which additionally lists BGI founders Wang Jian and Yang Huanming as co-authors. BGI’s different joint analysis with Gao has concerned troopers in Tibet and Xinjiang, Reuters reported in January learn extra .
That report was cited by two US senators who referred to as in September for BGI to be sanctioned by the United States as a military-linked firm. Gao’s analysis has instantly improved the flexibility of China’s rapid-advance plateau troops to hold out coaching and fight missions, in line with the Chinese army’s official information service.
China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences launched a four-year plan in 2012 for troops to acclimatise and adapt to the low-oxygen Tibetan plateau. That plan mentioned BGI was working with Gao’s lab to check troopers arriving in Tibet and establish genes linked to altitude illness, which doesn’t have an effect on Tibetans. It mentioned stopping altitude illness helped to “manage border areas where ethnic minorities gather,” and had far-reaching financial and political significance.
BGI informed Reuters the analysis with the army college aimed to know the well being threat for all folks travelling to and dealing at excessive altitude.
“The project using BGI’s technology studied the changes of the pathophysiology and genomics of the human body at very high altitudes,” a BGI spokesman mentioned. “In China, many military institutions … carry out both civilian and military research,” he added.
Gao wrote in 2018 that prime altitude illness “is the main reason for reduced combat effectiveness and health damage of soldiers at high altitudes and influences the results of war on the highland plateau,” and famous that medicine may very well be utilized in an emergency for the speedy deployment of troopers.
China’s army has just lately elevated reside hearth drills in Tibet after border clashes with India.
Deep ties
The University of Copenhagen has considered one of Europe’s oldest genetics institutes, and it’s BGI’s largest worldwide analysis companion by depend of science papers.
The ties run deep. Two former BGI chief executives, BGI’s chairman, and the founding father of its animal cloning programme beforehand studied or labored at Copenhagen. The college hosts greater than two dozen BGI-funded researchers endeavor science and well being doctorates.
Biology head Kroer informed Reuters the college had been unaware of “claims that BGI has connections with the PLA.” The college mentioned that aside from Zhang’s wage as a professor, no Danish cash was spent on the examine, which animal rights activists have argued subjected the animals to struggling and misery.
The scholar Zhang labored with was in China and employed by BGI, the college mentioned. Zhang’s analysis crew was not concerned within the animal experiments carried out in China, however did analyse the genomic knowledge generated from the experiments, it added.
The Lundbeck Foundation, which primarily funds mind analysis and was incorrectly listed as a funder of the monkey mind examine, “has not supported this area of his research, nor do we have any knowledge about it,” a spokesman mentioned of the monkey mind mission. Lundbeck mentioned Zhang had informed them he was learning ants and genetics and the way this might clarify mind processes in people.
The basis mentioned it requested Zhang this yr to take away its identify from the examine. The Carlsberg Foundation, which controls the world’s third-largest brewer and mentioned it gave Zhang a DKK 4 million ($623,000) fellowship in 2016, additionally informed Reuters it had been incorrectly listed as funding the mission.
The paper was revealed in a Chinese journal, Zoological Research, which declined to remark.
Zhang is on the journal’s editorial board. He informed Reuters the 2 Danish foundations had been talked about within the paper by mistake. “We did not spend any funding from the grants I received from these two foundations on this project,” he added in an e mail. The journal revealed a correction eradicating the foundations’ names in March 2021.
Lundbeck declined to touch upon what impression the invention may need; Carlsberg has mentioned animal experiments performed abroad should adjust to Danish rules, however didn’t touch upon the army involvement.
Internal debate
In June 2020, the University of Copenhagen determined to shut a assume tank it had run with Shanghai’s Fudan University since 2013, saying it had adjusted its total cooperation technique.
The resolution prompted a debate about China contained in the college, paperwork obtained by Reuters underneath freedom of data guidelines present. The college held a gathering in August 2020 to debate the closure of Fudan and evaluation its collaboration with China.
“China has engaged in a strategic civil-military fusion of research that often blurs the lines to the outsider,” China Studies professor Jorgen Delman mentioned in a be aware to the college’s head afterwards, recommending higher screening of Chinese researchers and consultations with Danish army intelligence to advise on “risks and no-go areas.” He declined to remark additional.
Genetic cloning know-how was transferred to BGI after a researcher, Yutao Du, obtained her doctorate in 2007 with a crew from Danish universities that created the world’s first pigs utilizing a way referred to as handmade cloning. She was praised by the Chinese authorities for bringing the know-how to China, which went on to clone genetically modified pigs for the examine of human neurological sicknesses.
China’s nationwide science programme mentioned cloned pigs had been a stepping stone to chimeras, a controversial space the place China needed to guide the world. Chimeras are organisms composed of cells from two or extra species that could be able to rising organs for human transplantation.
Du is now vp at BGI Genomics Ltd, and received promotion throughout the Chinese Communist Party, changing into a delegate to its nationwide congress in 2017. She didn’t reply to a request for remark.