News on China's scientific and technological development.

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GiantPanda

Junior Member
Registered Member
measuredingabens said:
At the same time, the US has even less it can do to China's biotech sector than it used to able to do to the latter's semi industry. Biotech comes with its own set of challenges, but things like growth media and bioreactors don't require the kind of precision that lithography demands.
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China in medicine and biotech has the best and most complete set of data anywhere. American medical and pharmaceutical companies had always taken advantage of this fact.

Forget the equipment which China's industrial base can inevitable build. The true advantage is the data.

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FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
interestedseal said:
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Bioreactors in biotech/bio manufacturing are similar to lithography tools in semi industry. There is an interesting parallel between the situations of these two industries:

Bioreactor=litho machine
CDMO= fab
Wuxi=Smic
Generics=legacy node
Novel biomolecule=leading edge node
Growth medium=photoresist
Cell line=wafer
Cleanroom=cleanroom
Yield=yield
Sanctions=sanctions
Biosecure Act=Chips Act
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no, you can't compare bio to semiconductor. totally different. in particular, the process equipment matters far less in bio because the chemistry is far less aggressive.

a bioreactor is a tank made of stainless steel with some valve ports. that's all it boils down to. there is no fundamental difference between a biochemical process and a petrochemical one except the biochemical one is almost always less chemically aggressive and at around STP rather than high temperature/pressure.

there's some surface treatment to smooth reactor walls out ie electropolishing but to compare it to litho is a joke. it can't even compare to etch or deposition tools, which require even more rigorous surface treatment i.e. plasma resistant ceramic coatings and even higher purity with < ppb levels of non-alloy trace metals. there are no moving parts in a bioreactor except an agitator and everything is a well behaved liquid.

in comparison, lithography requires multiple moving parts with nm precision. it needs to withstand high energy radiation. etch and deposition chambers have to withstand fluorine and oxygen plasmas at 400C and vacuum.
 
M

measuredingabens

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
no, you can't compare bio to semiconductor. totally different. in particular, the process equipment matters far less in bio because the chemistry is far less aggressive.

a bioreactor is a tank made of stainless steel with some valve ports. that's all it boils down to. there is no fundamental difference between a biochemical process and a petrochemical one except the biochemical one is almost always less chemically aggressive and at around STP rather than high temperature/pressure.

there's some surface treatment to smooth reactor walls out ie electropolishing but to compare it to litho is a joke. it can't even compare to etch or deposition tools, which require even more rigorous surface treatment i.e. plasma resistant ceramic coatings and even higher purity with < ppb levels of non-alloy trace metals. there are no moving parts in a bioreactor except an agitator and everything is a well behaved liquid.

in comparison, lithography requires multiple moving parts with nm precision. it needs to withstand high energy radiation. etch and deposition chambers have to withstand fluorine and oxygen plasmas at 400C and vacuum.
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Yeah, all the things that need to be regulated in a bioreactor like pH, temperature, oxygen content, feedstock (nutrients and such) etc. are much less straining than what happens in semi manufacturing. Biomolecules are much easier to produce with just yeast or bacteria, given how simple it is to insert the relevant genes into them.
 
I

interestedseal

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
no, you can't compare bio to semiconductor. totally different. in particular, the process equipment matters far less in bio because the chemistry is far less aggressive.

a bioreactor is a tank made of stainless steel with some valve ports. that's all it boils down to. there is no fundamental difference between a biochemical process and a petrochemical one except the biochemical one is almost always less chemically aggressive and at around STP rather than high temperature/pressure.

there's some surface treatment to smooth reactor walls out ie electropolishing but to compare it to litho is a joke. it can't even compare to etch or deposition tools, which require even more rigorous surface treatment i.e. plasma resistant ceramic coatings and even higher purity with < ppb levels of non-alloy trace metals. there are no moving parts in a bioreactor except an agitator and everything is a well behaved liquid.

in comparison, lithography requires multiple moving parts with nm precision. it needs to withstand high energy radiation. etch and deposition chambers have to withstand fluorine and oxygen plasmas at 400C and vacuum.
Click to expand...
Of course bio manufacturing requires less precision and sophistication than semi. The similarities are in terms of the organizational structures of these two industries and what’s happening to them geopolitically, not the specific technical requirements. The analogy goes only so far.
Btw, most biologics pharma production uses plastic single-use bioreactors instead of stainless steel reactor, and many do not have an agitator/impeller at all due to animal cell sensitivity to shear stress. Airlift, hollow fiber and rocking motion reactor types are agitatorless and unique to bio industry
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
interestedseal said:
Of course bio manufacturing requires less precision and sophistication than semi. The similarities are in terms of the organizational structures of these two industries and what’s happening to them geopolitically, not the specific technical requirements. The analogy goes only so far.
Btw, most biologics pharma production uses plastic single-use bioreactors instead of stainless steel reactor, and many do not have an agitator/impeller at all due to animal cell sensitivity to shear stress. Airlift, hollow fiber and rocking motion reactor types are agitatorless and unique to bio industry
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Because the requirements are lower, the same sanctions won't work.

It is why the semiconductor equipment sanctions on China required a huge response but Russia just laughed off the petrochemical equipment sanctions after 2022, and petrochemical equipment like gas turbines and steam reformers are way harder to build than bioreactors.
 
I

interestedseal

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
Because the requirements are lower, the same sanctions won't work.

It is why the semiconductor equipment sanctions on China required a huge response but Russia just laughed off the petrochemical equipment sanctions after 2022, and petrochemical equipment like gas turbines and steam reformers are way harder to build than bioreactors.
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Agree that sanctions on production equipment in bio industries are much less effective than their counterparts in semi industry. However, don’t forget the sanctions also target market access. China is the largest market for semiconductors and the US is the largest market for biologics
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
interestedseal said:
Agree that sanctions on production equipment in bio industries are much less effective than their counterparts in semi industry. However, don’t forget the sanctions also target market access. China is the largest market for semiconductors and the US is the largest market for biologics
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How did they become the biggest markets tho? Is it because they're so careful about their health?

They print USD and use it to extort the entire world. They use propaganda and regulatory capture to convince wavering people to accept their biotech products. They conduct needless animal experimentation and even worse, conduct human experimentation on the poorest populations. They withhold food and medicine as weapons.

Their biotech lobby is the greatest cause of suffering in the world, arguably on par with the MIC. It is one of the great crimes of the empire on par with the Irish Famine, Bengal Famine and Belgian Congo.

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J

jnd85

Just Hatched
Registered Member
Phead128 said:
This is well known for decades. Even a Pigeon bird is faster data transfer and cost-effective than Gigabit fibre in the US. To frame it into a uniquely Chinese phenomenon just illustrates how limited your world view is.

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If I am not mistaken, it is cheaper to transport data by HDD rather than using cable to almost anywhere - in the short run. It is just a matter of what your unit of time is.
 
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