SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA) – As countries are struggling to test for the coronavirus, a Chinese company has made a mark around the world.
BGI Group, in one 2015 study of genomics research looked upon as a frontrunner, is making an attempt to leave its footprint globally, amid the coronavirus pandemic. It says it has sold 35 million rapid COVID-19 testing kits to 180 countries and 58 labs in 18 countries were built In the past six months.
The company is employing gene-sequencing technology, as well that US security officials fear could threaten national security. As they use sequencers to analyse genetic material, it has been feared that it will unlock powerful personal information.
BGI is urging international health researchers to send in virus data generated on its equipment. Patient samples that have tested positive for COVID-19 have been asked for, to be shared publicly via China’s government-funded National GeneBank.
The Shenzhen-based company’s links to the Chinese government are supporting BGI’s global expansion. BGI asserted that it is not owned by the Chinese government, as a response.
BGI said in a statement, “Under the current political climate, the fear raised about the use of BGI’s technology is unfounded and misleading, BGI’s mission is, and has always been, using genomics to benefit people’s health and wellbeing.”
China’s foreign ministry said in a statement the country has been open, transparent and responsible in “sharing information and experience with the international community, providing supplies to relevant countries”. This includes COVID-19 test kits and protective equipment.
In the case of genetic data, officials and scientists add the risks of sharing data are that it could be weaponised.
A US State Department spokesman said, “We believe countries need to be able to trust that vendors will not threaten national security, privacy or intellectual property. Trust cannot exist where a company is subject to an authoritarian government, like the People’s Republic of China, that lacks prohibitions on the misuse of data.”
In the pandemic, researchers around the globe are using sequencers so that mutations in the virus could be traced, so as to find out which mutation is spreading.
In July, BGI Genomics, BGI’s listed subsidiary on the Shenzhen stock exchange filed for a $293 million capital hike, telling investors in the filing their support would help it collect as much patient data as possible, “on the human body, genome, people’s living habits and environment, so we can understand more, and diagnose in a more precise way.”
The company also says it plans to promote the Fire Eye labs it rolls out for COVID-19 for precision medicine after the pandemic.
BGI ran into troubled waters after it declared the launch of its sequencers in the United States, which was seen as an accusation of intellectual property violations from Illumina. BGI refused to comment on the case.
One recipient of BGI sequencing equipment is Serbia. Two labs have opened in the Balkan country, both of which were donated by Chinese companies, according to Beijing and Belgrade.
After the first lab opened, coordinator Jelena Begovic told Reuters in May that DNA sequencers help researchers by linking genetic information on the virus with genetic information on the patient. In future, she said, the labs would underpin cooperation with BGI.
Prime Minister Ana Brnabic told, “We will have the most modern lab, which will enable us to start talking with BGI on how to build the most advanced institute for precision medicine and genetics in this region.”
Microbiology professor Lars Engstrand said in a presentation on BGI’s website BGI’s sequencing equipment has been received by Sweden too. The Karolinska Institute, a medical university in Stockholm, aims to make use of the same to identify a human genotype that is prone to the disease.
While the virus data is being researched upon across the world, BGI has also set up its own sharing platform, the “Global Initiative on Open-source Genomics” to deal with the virus.
On a website titled giogs.genomics.cn, together with the China National GeneBank, international scientists are invited to send in virus information including the age of the patient, gender and location, while complying with the local regulations.
The site mentioned, “You will be asked to share virus genome data to the public via (the National GeneBank) in the first instance.”
BGI told no patient samples were received under this new programme. However, samples have been sequenced in local facilities.
It said it wants to work on the open sharing of genome data to support research on the virus.
As per a paper shared on MedRvix, a website for pre-published scientific papers, one of the labs backed a dozen BGI researchers’ study. The genomes of more than 300 COVID-19 patients in a Shenzhen hospital were sequenced by them.
The researchers wrote, “We and the others are continuing to recruit patients and data in China and around the world to understand the host genetic background underlying the varying clinical outcome of the patients.”
Two BGI subsidiaries spotted in the blacklist of the US Commerce Department last month for allegation about China’s human rights violations. Washington accused that BGI is involved in the genetic analysis conducted on Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in western China. According to UN experts and activists, Muslims were held in detention centres there.
BGI said in a statement it “does not condone and would never be involved in any human-rights abuses.” Chinese officials say the camps are educational and vocational institutions and deny they violate the human rights of the detainees.
China’s security apparatus has been a BGI customer, and another BGI subsidiary, Forensic Genomics International, on its website added that it works with China’s Public Security Bureau.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.