Table 3.

SB research in China by subfield.

Subfield	Active research topics	Potentional applications
Genetic circuit (Section 2.1)	Genetically modifying biosysthesis pathways for ethanol. Butanol and fatty acids production	Biofuel production
	Biosysthsis pathways for PHAs and fine chemical products (riboflavin, succinate and etc.)	Chemicals from renewable resources
	Biosensors to detect and/or degrade insecticides, heavy metal, and etc.	Bioremedication
	Genetic control elements, method for unmarked genetic modification, reporter-guided mutant selection,	Basic research
Minimal genomes (Section 2.2)	Building up database on microbial metabolism, genentic parts for physiological functions	Bioinformations for rational designs
	Identifing reduced genomes of organisms of engineering importance such as E. coli, P. putida and etc.	Chassie organisms
Chemical synthetic biology (Section 2.3)	Unnatural proteins of special structure	Basic research
	Proteins containing unnatual amino acids	Molecules with designed properties
Protocells (Section 2.4)	Using basic type of procells to study energy conversion	Basic research
	DNA based nanopore on protocells	Drug delivery system
DNA synthesis (Section 2.5)	Improving DNA synthesis methods	Faciliating SB research and commercialization
	Codon optimization	Improving activities of the molecules of interest