Huairou Science City ups China's R&D cachet

The other science centers are located in Zhangjiang, Shanghai; Hefei in Anhui province; and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

As the first rays of the sun illuminate a multimodal biomedical imaging center cradled by several surrounding laboratory buildings, equipment inside the advanced biomedical imaging facility, dubbed the National Multimode Trans-Scale Biomedical Imaging Center, is scanning and imaging the entirety of a human body to visualize diseases.

Whether it is the minor details of a single cell or the intricacies of a complete organ, the high-end equipment is able to image data into a cohesive whole with unprecedented precision.

With its potentially significant role in biomedical research, the center has been recognized as a major national scientific and technological facility.

Sun Yujie, deputy head of the Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies at Peking University and deputy director of the National Biomedical Imaging Center, said: "As the development of contemporary life sciences is inseparable from imaging technology, such a biomedical imaging facility will help create a 'life observatory' from macro to micro scales for better advancement of human life."

Following its initial trial operation at the end of last year, the center promises to provide unprecedented precision in visualizing disease progression and enable comprehensive research and analysis of significant biomedical scientific questions, Sun added.

Similar to this center, other major scientific and technological ones in Huairou Science City include the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility, High Energy Photon Source, Earth System Science Numerical Simulator Facility, Ground-based Space Environment Monitoring Network and Human Organ Physiopathology Emulation System.