Leukemia patients may have a better chance of surviving and living longer, now that Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough on the discovery of genetic therapies that could modify malfunctioning genes.

This is only one of the great scientific achievements gained in the year 2001, the beginning of the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05) period, sources from the Ministry of Science and Technology said.

Other great strides have been achieved in agriculture, high-tech industries and research and development activities.

Researchers at the Chinese Human Genome Center in Shanghai have found that 169 genes in the human body could be affected by all trans-reinoicacid (ATRA), also called Vitamin A acid, which naturally exists in human bodies.

The acid can be compared to something that corrects mistakes. ATRA can bring genes that are going astray back to normal. Thus, appropriate amounts of ATRA injections to the targeted genes can recover the cell's functions and further cure promyelocytic leukemia -- a kind of blood cancer, researchers concluded.

Researchers are trying to study whether ATRA can cure other kinds of cancers.

The World Health Organization predicts that cancers may become the first "killer" of the human race in the new century.

"Hopefully, ATRA studies can help develop medicines to recover malfunctioned genes in the near future and help cure blood or even other kinds of cancers," said Chen Kaixian, director of the Shanghai Pharmacy Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a telephone interview with China Daily.

Agronomists also did a great job last year. They cultivated new seeds of high-yield cotton, maize, rice, wheat and vegetables. Farmlands across the country embraced 32 million hectares of these new seeds last year.

The popularization of these new seeds will produce higher outputs in the next few years, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Meanwhile, water-saving irrigation techniques have been spread into the arid northeast, northwest and north parts of China, to help sustain agricultural production in these areas.

Last year, global high-tech industries registered a sluggish development. But China remained an increasing export of computer, communications and other high-tech products, said the ministry's secretary-general, Shi Dinghuan.

The country's export volume of high-tech products hit US$41.4 billion during the period of January to November of last year, up 24 percent over the same period of 2000, the ministry's statistics indicate.

Last year, the Ministry of Science and Technology completed a large survey on the country's research and development (R&D) expenditures in 2000.

The survey is the first of its kind that aims to investigate the country's R&D activities among enterprises and research institutes, so as to further push the development of academic research among them, said Shi.

The survey found that China's ratio of expenditure on R&D -- which mainly includes the activities of basic scientific studies, applied technology research and corresponding experiments -- ranks at the top of developing countries.

The ratio of R&D to gross domestic production (GDP) is an important international benchmark that measures a nation's scientific development scale and partly reflects the potential of economic growth, said Shi.

China's expenditure on R&D made up 1 percent of GDP in 2000, making it the leader among developing countries.

But the country lags far behind developed nations -- the ratio of R&D to GDP is 3 percent in Japan and 1.8 percent in the European Union.

The state is expected to raise this ratio to 1.5 percent or more by 2005, Shi said.

Last year, the state launched 39 improved projects in areas ranging from electronics to food security to fuel national economic growth.

(China Daily January 21, 2002)