I can extract side effects

In Beijing, the magnificent Syngenta headquarters building.

President Wang De seriously looked at a document on the table. It was a work report that no one could fault. The main content was the long-term strategic cooperation with Sanqing Pharmaceutical on insecticides.

In the global locust plague, Sanqing won a huge order of US$6 billion with its special-effect insecticide, and Syngenta, as a manufacturer, also got a piece of the pie. This year's financial report will undoubtedly be much better.

The two parties will continue to cooperate in the future. Sanqing will produce the formula, and they will produce and sell it, so as to conquer cities and land in the global pesticide market.

Looking at the huge numbers on the report, he couldn't help feeling extremely happy. He got up and walked to the French windows, looking into the distance.

After three years, this sinking ship has finally set sail and braved the wind and waves.

Four years ago, Huaxia Chemical Group acquired Syngenta, with a transaction volume of 43 billion U.S. dollars, becoming the largest overseas acquisition in the history of Huaxia Enterprises. form.

However, the acquisition is just the beginning. After the purchase, how to absorb the world's top three agrochemical giants into the Huaxia system, and integrate domestic and foreign teams together, so that Huaxia's local agriculture can reach the world's leading level, is undoubtedly a challenge. A big challenge.

This is by no means achievable by simple administrative orders.

A certain winter day four years ago flashed through Wang De's mind. He was appointed as the agricultural president of the newly established Syngenta Group, and he set foot on the high-speed train to Beijing alone.

At that time, the group's agrochemical business was facing the most difficult moment. The morale of the disorganized team was low, and the prospects were gloomy under the annual losses.

What was sent to him was a stack of resignation letters, and what he couldn't accept the most was the departure of a large number of young people.

After a work meeting, he was shocked to find that there were only two people left in the scientific research team of the fertilizer department.

He was 41 years old this year, and his middle age collided head-on with a difficult moment in life.

Huaxia Chemical has a long history in agricultural business. Its fertilizer business once covered 95% of the domestic arable land, and it owned the first seed company in Huaxia that year.

In the wave of reform and opening up, countless competitors in the agricultural field failed to defeat it, but now it is in trouble.

Fortunately, after 3 years of unremitting efforts, he finally proved himself.

The company's agricultural business has been reborn and has continued to turn losses into profits.

And he was also appointed as the China President of Syngenta Group last year.

This seemingly glorious moment actually entered another battlefield.

At this moment, Syngenta's plant protection business (pesticides and fertilizers) has benefited from integration and reorganization, and has achieved significant growth, becoming the ballast stone of the company's revenue.

As long as the plant protection business continues to grow steadily, other businesses of Syngenta can boldly make breakthroughs and invest in it, respond to the call of the country, and vigorously develop the seed cultivation business.

Last year, the central government specifically proposed to carry out technical research on the "stuck neck" of seed sources to fight a turnaround for the seed industry, and the seed industry was immediately placed with high hopes by all the people.

Especially in today's new situation of international economic and trade relations, seeds are crucial to national food security, and topics related to seeds have also become the focus of domestic people's attention.

How to make a turnaround in the seed industry has become a topic of concern to government departments, scientific research experts and even street people.

The seed team led by Syngenta and Wonder also stood in the spotlight.

He personally served as the team leader and started a tough battle in the seed industry, determined to complete the glorious mission of exploring the way for China's modern agriculture.

A consensus was quickly established within Syngenta, that is, the seed industry is the company's top priority, and all departments should fully cooperate with the work of the seed business department, and even for the seed business, the company can invest regardless of cost.

"If the seed is successful, the company will be successful; if the seed fails, the company's other business will fail if it doubles."

Wang De said so in an internal high-level meeting with the momentum of breaking the boat.

The high hopes of the people and the destiny of the enterprise have been firmly bound together since then.

Under stress, he always felt anxious and often couldn't sleep well at night.

He no longer had any vacations, weekend meetings became a regular occurrence, and his workload doubled or tripled.

Even so, he has no complaints or regrets, and there is only a feeling of family and country in his heart that is surging and ups and downs, supporting him to persevere.

No matter how great the pressure is, as long as he can participate in it, he will feel extremely lucky.

Because this is the dream of a generation of agricultural people in China.

Their mission is to integrate domestic and foreign innovative resources, run at a speed three times that of others, and reduce the generation gap between domestic and foreign seed industries.

Maybe 10 years later, the two sides will be able to keep pace with each other, and even Huaxia enterprises will be able to take the lead.

Due to the lack of protection of intellectual property rights in the past, Huaxia Seed Industry has insufficient innovation capabilities in the entire industry.

There are more than 8,000 seed companies in the country, of which at most only 100 have research and development capabilities, and most of them are sales companies.

The industry concentration of the seed industry is also very low. The top 3 seed companies in Eagle Country account for 70% of the market, and the top 10 seed companies in China account for less than 30% of the market. The scale of the company is small, so it is impossible to guarantee R\u0026D investment .

For more than a year, Wang De led Legenta to carry out a series of actions.

On the research and development side, an innovation center for corn, soybeans, rice and other crops has been built.

On the sales side, a Huaxia Seed Industry co-creation platform has been created.

At the same time, it also strengthens the industry-university-research cooperation with the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and uses advanced gene editing, biological breeding and other technologies to develop better products.

Finally, a seed museum has been established to collect rich seed resources.

The company's investment has been richly rewarded, and dozens of new varieties of corn and rice have been approved.

However, this is far from enough. The process of seed cultivation is far more complicated than people imagined.

Over the past 30 years, the world has made breakthroughs in breeding levels, with an average annual increase of only a few percentage points.

To win the turnaround of the seed industry, they need more than some new varieties that increase yield by a few percent.

What they want is a hot model, a hot model that can greatly increase production, so as to meet the expectations of the country and the people for breeding.

When hybrid rice was popularized and applied on a large scale in China, its yield increased by a full 20% compared with conventional rice.

Therefore, cultivating a new product with an increase in production of more than 10-20% is their ultimate goal.

To this end, Wonder's team turned their attention to the most cutting-edge biotechnology-gene editing.

Domestic scientific research institutions have done in-depth research on the genomes of corn, soybean and rice.

As long as they continue to drill down and find genes that control yield and disease resistance, they can use gene editing technology to develop new varieties.

The yield per unit area of ​​soybeans and corn in my country is not high at present, only about 60% of that of Eagle Country. Therefore, the potential for developing high-yield genetic soybeans and corn is very broad.

Unfortunately, Syngenta is an expert in agriculture, but not so much in biotechnology.

In terms of gene editing technology, they frequently hit the wall and encountered technical bottlenecks.

Looking at the distant scenery outside the window, Wang De had a new idea in his heart.

He also saw the news that the desert prince had traveled thousands of miles to China to buy genetic medicines with huge sums of money.

In addition, Sanqing’s previous innovations and breakthroughs in rare disease gene medicines.

Sanqing's genetic technology is undoubtedly one of the best in the world. So, can we join hands with it to apply gene editing technology to the seed industry and develop a brand new explosive seed?

As soon as this idea came out, it quickly grew from a spark to a raging flame.

Wang De turned around resolutely, went back to his desk, and called a Sanqing executive.

"Hello, is that Mr. Sun? I'm Wang De from Syngenta."

Sun Chengren was on the other end of the phone. He was basically the one who negotiated the cooperation between Sanqing and Syngenta in the field of pesticides, so they are considered to be familiar with each other.

Both parties are veterans of shopping malls, exchanged pleasantries, and immediately went straight to the point.

"That's right. I heard that Sanqing's technology in gene editing is very powerful, so I want to have further cooperation with Sanqing in genetic crops. The country is also vigorously supporting the reform and innovation of the seed industry, and there is a lot to do in this regard. "

"Oh, it sounds very attractive." Sun Chengren was also a little moved, but he thought about the notoriety of genetically modified foods, and couldn't help hesitating: "But I heard that genetically modified foods don't seem to be very popular."

"Mr. Sun, listen to my explanation. Genetically modified crops are completely different from gene-edited crops. The former has added other heterogeneous genes, while the latter just knocks out or expresses some original genes, so it is actually not much different from ordinary breeding. Greatly increased efficiency and reduced time."

"Crop breeding has been going on for thousands of years. Even now, if traditional breeding methods are used, it takes several generations and takes 5-8 years to develop suitable new crops."

"However, if gene editing tools are directly used for genome manipulation, the time for crop breeding can often be shortened to less than one year, which greatly saves time."

"That's too powerful." Sun Chengren was shocked and praised again and again.

"We have enough advantages in agriculture, and Sanqing's genetic technology is so outstanding. If we cooperate to develop new genetic crops, it will undoubtedly be a win-win situation." Wang De couldn't help being excited when he thought of the prospect of cooperation between the two parties.

Sun Chengren couldn't help nodding and said, "I'm a little tempted by what you've said. How about this, I'll have a reaction with Mr. Wei, and if he agrees, I'll tell you."

Wang De was a little apprehensive: "Do you think President Wei agrees to such a cooperation?"

"This is a good thing. It is of great benefit to the country and the people. Based on my understanding of him, there is absolutely no problem. Just wait for my good news."

After Sun Chengren hung up the phone, he immediately ran to report the matter to Wei Kang.

Wei Kang was a little surprised at the moment, this Syngenta and Sanqing had benefited from the cooperation, obviously he couldn't stop.

However, the innovation of the seed industry is of great significance. Not only can it greatly increase food production and allow China to achieve food independence, but it can also completely rid people of hunger.

"No problem, we happen to be very interested in this aspect, and we can reach an agricultural cross-border strategic cooperation together."

Wei Kang immediately made a decision and agreed to Syngenta's cooperation request.

Three days later, Wang De arrived in Kunming with his seed team.

After some negotiations between the two parties, a new cooperation agreement was signed.

The newly established crop department of Sanxin finally has a place to play.

After the signing of the contract, the seed team of Syngenta stayed in Sanqing, and the two parties formed a new project team to officially start the research on high-yield crops.

The first goal is soybeans. Since Huaxia soybeans are mainly imported, in order to achieve the goal of food independence, it is necessary to develop a brand new high-yield soybean.

Fortunately, the agricultural experts of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have already achieved some results in soybean genome research.

Scientists have discovered the key genes that control soybean grain size, oil content and protein content. This discovery is of great significance for improving soybean yield and quality through gene editing technology.

The gene, called Sweet 10, plays a key role in controlling soybean seed development and oil accumulation.

The study further found that if the "Sweet 10" gene is knocked out, the weight of 100-seed soybean seeds will decrease by 40.2%, the oil content will decrease by 40.7%, and the protein content will increase by 32.1%.

If the expression of this gene is increased in cultivated soybeans, the weight and oil content of 100-seed soybean seeds will be significantly increased, and the yield per soybean plant can be increased by 11% to 20%.

In addition, scientists have also discovered another "Sweet 15" gene that regulates the number of soybean grains. After being superimposed with the results of this research, it is expected to make greater breakthroughs in important traits such as high yield and high quality of soybeans.

Therefore, the project team intends to start with these two genes and increase the expression of the "Sweet 10" and "Sweet 15" genes at the same time, to see if they can develop a genetic soybean with increased yield and high oil content.

Biologists at Sanqing soon had a breakthrough.

"What? Gene editing was successful, and new seeds have been developed?" Wang De received the good news from the seed team in Beijing.

After Wang De listened to the report, he was suddenly in a trance, which was too fast.

In just two weeks, Sanqing's genetic team used CRISPR-CAS9 gene editing technology to successfully express two genes in soybean cells and cultivate seed samples.

Next, the seed team of Syngenta needs to select a suitable soybean planting area, conduct experiments, and observe the subsequent performance.

Lu Province, an agricultural base of Syngenta, welcomed a group of excited visitors.

As soon as Wang De got off the plane, he rushed into the base with the key personnel of the group.

The entourage behind him carefully held a box containing the seed samples for this experiment.

This experiment is high-yield soybeans. If the experiment is successful, there will be a series of new crops such as high-yield corn and drought-resistant rice.

A group of people walked into a rapid breeding plant workshop, where it was as warm as spring, with high and low temperatures, suitable humidity, and sufficient light.

The regulation here is highly automated, and conditions such as light intensity, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration are all automatically adjusted.

On each white shelf, there are cultivation tanks filled with soil, most of which are planted with green seedlings.

Generally speaking, in this kind of rapid breeding plant factory, customized light sources are used to provide the best light, and nutrients are precisely supplied according to the nutritional needs of different periods, and the environment can also be precisely controlled, so as to provide seeds for each growth stage. The best growing environment.

As a result, the traditional crop growth cycle can be cut in half.

For soybeans, the 120-day growth cycle can be shortened to about 60 days.

Under the crowd's onlookers, the staff of the base will soon plant the seeds brought by them one by one.

Everything that follows is left to time.