BGI, Zhejiang University, the University of Adelaide in Australia, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and other organizations jointly published in Nature the research results: "Platypus and echidna genomes reveal mammalian biology and evolution". For the first time, whole genome data was used to study these egg-laying mammals to provide key insights into the lineage-specific genomic changes that shaped both the evolution of egg-laying mammals and mammalian evolution.

MGI first introduced its high-throughput automated nucleic acid extractor, MGISP-NE384 to enhance the testing capacity of Shijiazhuang’s Huo-Yan laboratory. One single unit of MGISP-NE384 can process 10,000 samples per day, and the daily testing capacity of 10 units can reach up to 1 million if 10 samples mixed in one tube for batch testing. It could be used alongside MGI's MGISP-960 high-throughput automated sample preparation system and MGISTP-7000 high-throughput automated sample transfer processing system to comprehensively speed up nucleic acid detection.

BGI set up Huo-Yan Laboratories (air-film version) in 10 hours and put them into operation in 21 hours to help Hebei Province fight against the pandemic. With a daily testing throughput of 100,000, these laboratories can test up to 1 million samples a day, enhancing the testing capacity of Shijiazhuang.

At the Shenzhen Science and Technology Awards Conference held on January 6, the national standard "GB/T 34798-2017 Nucleic Acid Database Sequence Format Specification", jointly drafted by the China National GeneBank and other organizations, won the 2020 Shenzhen Science and Technology Award "Standard Award". This was the first national standard formulated in China in the field of high-throughput gene sequencing data specification.

Scientists from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, the Department of Molecular Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, BGI and other institutions jointly published in Nature research that found that cell competition was one of the barriers to the formation of cross-species chimeras, and that the phenomenon of cell competition was common in stem cells of different species at specific stages.

BGI set up 12 air-film cabins of the air-film version of the Huo-Yan Laboratory in nine hours in Harbin to help Heilongjiang Province improve its nucleic acid detection capabilities and effectively respond to the pandemic.

The internationally-renowned academic journal Cell published two research papers "Tracing the genetic footprints of vertebrate landing in non-teleost ray-finned fishes" and "African lungfish genome sheds light on the vertebrate water-to- land transition." The papers, led and participated by BGI, analyzed the Bichir, Paddlefish, bowfin, and alligator gar, which are primitive ray-finned fishes, and the African lungfish, which is the closest tetrapod relative among living carnivorous fishes. The genomes of the five species revealed the mystery of the evolution of vertebrates from aquatic to terrestrial from different perspectives and evolutionary nodes.

BGI-Research, Zhejiang University and the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda jointly released research results of ultra-high-quality giant panda genomes in Science Bulletin "Chromosome-scale genomes provide new insights into subspecies divergence and evolutionary characteristics of the giant panda”. This released the genome of the panda Qinling subspecies for the first time, and also combined with other giant panda population data to conduct an in-depth discussion on the specific biological characteristics of giant pandas.

On February 15, President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia honored BGI Group with the Order of the Serbian Flag, First Class, for assistance in Serbia’s fight against COVID-19. In 2020, BGI Group helped Serbia build two state-of-the-art high-throughput "Huo-Yan (Fire-Eye) Laboratories” for COVID-19 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing. A total of 164 individuals and institutions were honored by the President on the country’s Statehood Day.

Nature Aging published online, "Sex- and age-related trajectories of the adult human gut microbiota shared across populations of different ethnicities". The research conducted by Peking University People's Hospital, BGI-Research, Beijing Frendship Hospital Pinggu Campus of Capital Medical University, studied the influence of more than 80 environmental and host phenotypes on the gut microbiota of the Han population in northern China, which was also the largest scale genomic research of the gut microbiota in the Chinese population so far.

BGI donates COVID-19 testing kits to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Angola

On April 8, MGI’s reagent production line was officially opened in Qingdao. It marks MGI Qingdao’s a solid step forward to a high-end medical health equipment manufacturing hub in Northeast Asia.

Science Bulletin published the research paper "Single cell atlas of domestic pig cerebral cortex and hypothalamus". The paper reported the single-cell transcriptome map of domestic pig brain tissue, and provided a valuable resource for research in neuroscience, regenerative medicine and evolutionary developmental biology.

BGI-Research, the Netherlands Genetic Resources Center, the China National GeneBank, Huazhong Agricultural University and other institutions published in Nature Genetics, "Whole-genome resequencing of 445 Lactuca accessions reveals the Domestication history of cultivated lettuce". This comprehensively revealed the complete domestication process of cultivated lettuce, and provided insights into the germplasm resource structure. The sources of important agronomic traits and disease resistance genes were explored and studied, which provided rich digital resources for lettuce breeding.

On April 16, a Huo-Yan laboratory was placed into operation by BGI at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia, Africa's busiest airport and the continent's leading gateway. This was the first laboratory independently operated and managed by a foreign company approved by the Ethiopian government, and also the first airport testing laboratory operated and managed by a Chinese company in Africa. It provides nucleic acid testing and antibody testing services for passengers traveling to and from China and Africa.

April 28, the Biodiversity Genome Research Team of BGI-Research published the research paper "Evolutionary and biomedical insights from a marmoset diploid genome assembly" online in Nature. Using the pedigreed genome sequencing data, the research team independently assembled two sets of high-quality genomes from the parents of the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), and expanded people's understanding of the genetic differences between the parents. Through the analysis of growth and development-related genes, the research team demonstrated the genetic basis of marmosets as a medical model species.

On May 19, Nankai University and BGI formally signed an industry-academic-research cooperation agreement for gene science. Both parties will jointly build the "Nankai University-BGI Joint Research Center", a school-enterprise innovation platform, and jointly promote the scientific and technological cooperation in spatiotemporal omics, single-cell technology, proteomics and other fields.

The 2021 Nature Index Annual Tables ranked BGI first in life science industry organizations in the Asia-Pacific region and 10^th among the life science industry institutions globally. This is the 6^th consecutive year where BGI has been ranked first in Asia-Pacific.

A portal acting as a Biology Resources Center of Plants, Animals and Microorganisms was released by the China Natonal GeneBank. This will significantly improve the ability for users to share living resources and obtain platform technical services. It also marked the further opening and sharing of the CNGB.

Following overnight construction, the daily throughput of nucleic acid testing in BGI Guangzhou's Huo-Yan laboratory expanded to nearly 210,000 single tube tests per day, setting a new record for the daily testing volume of individual laboratories in China. If 10 samples are combined into each test tube a maximum of nearly 2.1 million nucleic acid test samples can be detected daily.

BGI won the bid for the "100,000 Rare Disease Patients Whole Genome Sequencing Project" (GSRD-100KWCH) of the Institute of Rare Diseases, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, and plans to collect 100,000 rare disease cases over five years to establish a biological sample database and integrate clinical diagnosis and treatment information.
The project will conduct whole-genome detection for 100,000 rare disease patients, completing genome analysis, variation information annotation, genetic variation pathogenic interpretation, and in-depth mining of rare disease omics big data.
It will also establish a follow-up database system that can carry out prognostic research, develop a clinical intelligent decision support system for rare and difficult diseases, based on artificial intelligence technology, combined with genomic and clinical data to assist doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of difficult clinical diseases.
In addition, West China Hospital will cooperate with BGI to build the "Disease Molecular Network" Frontier Science Center genome sequencing public platform to meet the whole genome sequencing needs of the project.

MGI won the 22^nd China Patent Award of China Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) for its patent of "Sample Pre-treatment Equipment for Gene Sequencing System". (Patent No.:ZL201420750277.1) This patented technology can be used for automated nucleic acid extraction and automated sequencing library preparation to provide a one-stop platform for the needs of precision medicine, agriculture and healthcare. Meanwhile, it can also be applied to automated liquid handling in molecular diagnosis, proteomics, cell science, drug screening, and more.

BGI-Research and China National GeneBank published a research paper on DNA based data storage in Synthetic Biology Journal. The Chamaeleo platform, developed by the research team, provides an efficient encoding and decoding platform by integrating the existing classical DNA-based data storage encoding and decoding algorithms, establishing corresponding evaluation rules and evaluation parameters, and constructing parameter evaluation and multi-dimensional evaluation for various scenarios. The system can produce the optimal solution of encoding and decoding methods for different types of files. Chamaeleo is designed as an open-source style for researchers to incorporate new coding schemes and evaluation indexes into the platform.

In July, Nature Communications published “Dissecting spatial heterogeneity and the immuneevasion mechanism of CTCs by single-cell RNA-seq in hepatocellular carcinoma" by reserachers from Fudan University (Zhongshan Hospital) Liver Cancer Research Institute and BGI-Research. The paper analyzed the spatiotemporal heterogeneity and immune escape mechanism of circulating tumor cells in liver cancer through single-cell sequencing, and provided new ideas for further exploration of anti-tumor recurrence and metastasis strategies targeting CTCs.

On July 26, the launching ceremony of the public welfare screening for women's “Two-Cancer" (cervical cancer and breast cancer) was held in Chicheng County, Hebei Province. The project targets women aged 30-64 in the County and uses a “Two-Cancer” intelligent screening vehicle jointly built by BGI and partners. This will improve the early diagnosis of “Two-Cancer” among women in the county and rural areas.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Henan Province, BGI set up a Huo-Yan laboratory to conduct high-throughput nucleic acid detection in Xinxiang. The lab’s construction was completed in less than 24 hours, and the lab increased the daily testing capability to 1 million samples.

This competition, sponsored by China National GeneBank and co-organized by BGI-Research and The Mammoth Foundation, aims to improve the performance of single-cell clustering algorithms. Participants are required to use the data resources provided by the organizer to ensure the accuracy of the analysis results, develop/optimize single-cell clustering algorithms to reduce memory and improve computing speed.
Ten teams from more than 300 participating teams advanced to the finals, with Liu Jiaxin from Huazhong University of Science and Technology winning the championship. The other 9 teams from Zhejiang University, Boston University, Xi'an Jiaotong University and other universities or institutions won the second and third prizes respectively, and Excellence Award.

As part of a campaign to show support to health care workers, BGI donated health care gift packages, held public welfare popular science live broadcasts, and held a series of activities designed to show support for medical staff and at the same time raise the public health awareness of "early screening, early diagnosis and early treatment".

BGI’s Huo Yan Laboratory was put to operation with daily capacity of 5,000 samples, marking the 11^th overseas Huo-Yan laboratory built by BGI, as well as the 1^st in Southeast Asia.

A multi-center cooperation project on cardiovascular diseases was launched simultaneously in Beijing and Shenzhen. Over the next three years, BGI will work with medical experts from more than 10 hospitals to carry out research on single-gene inherited cardiovascular diseases, such as cardiomyopathy, cardiac ion channel disease, monogenic inherited hypertension, hereditary aortic disease, etc., The project aims at promoting the prevention and control of major cardiovascular diseases.

At the China Quality (Hangzhou) Conference, the results of the 4^th China Quality Award were announced, and the Huo-Yan project team of BGI Group won Nomination Award of the China Quality Award. Huo-Yan laboratory’s quality assurance management model for providing rapid, accurate and large-scale testing service was recognized by the award commitee.

BGI’s mobile Huo-Yan Laboratory won two design awards, the “Best of the Best” award of 10^th Taihu Design Competition Award 2021, and the “Gold Award”of 2021 China Design Intelligent Award. The mobile Huo-Yan Laboratory had previously won eight design awards, including the German iF and the Red Dot Design Award.

At the 2020 United Nations Biodiversity Conference, the China Pavilion Online Exhibition focused on the theme of COP15 "Ecological Civilization: Building a Community of Life on Earth". This was divided into a number of exhibition areas exploring biodiversity, China's ecological and biodiversity conservation achievements. The China National GeneBank showcased its work in the local exhibition area.

BGI opened a Huo-Yan laboratory in Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with a daily testing throughput of 30,000 single tubes and a maximum of 300,000 testable samples per day.

The 16^th Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Genomics (ICG) was held in the Sino-German Ecological Park in the Qingdao Free Trade Zone. Nine academicians led 155 experts to explore the core mysteries of life by applying multi-omics technology and leading the development of life sciences. Concurrently, the International Cooperation Center for Stereo-Seq (Qingdao) was completed, becoming the world's first international cooperation center for Stereo-Seq.
At ICG-16, MGI unveiled performance upgrades for its sequencing platforms and customized ATOPlex platform, and released a number of breakthrough technologies and products, including MGISP-Smart 8 automated sample preparation system and MGILab-LT automated ultra-low-temperature biobank.
As an annual industry event in the field of life sciences, the ICG has grown into a congress with global influence since its inception in 2006, a platform for exploring and advancing the frontiers of biological sciences.

The leading academic journal Nature published the study "A chickpea genetic variation map based on the sequencing of 3,366 genomes" . Through large-scale genome sequencing and analysis of chickpea global germplasm resources, it deepened the global understanding of chickpeas and promoted chickpea breeding practices.
Since 2013, BGI has participated in a series of chickpea genome research and landmark achievements. Breeding methods based on genomic data have further promoted the development of chickpea breeding practices, and have assisted the International Crop Research Center for the Semi-Arid Tropics in breeding several chickpea varieties.

At the 2021 (5^th) China Health Industry Summit, BGI received an award as an Industry Benchmarking Enterprise in the 2021 21^st Century Health Industry Competitiveness Research awards, and at the 2021 China (19^th) Enterprise Competitiveness Annual Conference Week, BGI won the "2021 China's Great Health Industry Outstanding Contribution Award". Both conferences were hosted by China's mainstream financial media, bringing together representatives from various experts, opinion leaders, technology pioneers and investment institutions.

Insights and analytics company, Clarivate, announced the list of "Highly Cited Researchers" in 2021, with 6,602 people from more than 70 countries and regions around the world selected. Among them, Wang Jian, Co-founder and Chairman of BGI Group, Yang Huanming, Co-founder of BGI Group, and Xu Xun, Executive Director of BGI Group,Director of BGI-Research,were included for interdisciplinary fields.

BGI and a government delegation from the Republic of Tanzania held an online signing ceremony for the construction of a Huo-Yan laboratory at Tanzania’s main international airport in Dar es Salaam, with a designed testing throughput of 1,000 samples per day. This will provide new COVID-19 testing for passengers flying to China enabling Air Tanzania's continuous operation of Chinese flights. At the same time, BGI will provide training and technical support for the Tanzanian laboratory personnel to ensure the smooth handover of the laboratory to the Tanzanian Ministry of Health.

Free HLA matching for moderate and severe thalassemia patients in Meizhou, Guangdong was launched by BGI. BGI will also provide free transplant matching for patients with moderate and severe thalassaemia in Meizhou as part of longer term efforts to reduce the incidence of severe thalassemia.

The National Pandemic Centre (NPC) of the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, used the mutation detection kit from BGI and identified highly suspected samples of the Omicron variant strains, and used the BGI library kit for whole-genome sequencing of the virus.
BGI’s gene sequencing platform and the SARS-CoV-2 variant detection kit helped the Saudi Ministry of Health report the first "Omicron" case. During the monitoring process of this variant, the viral genome was sequenced and confirmed to be an Omicron variant.

Technology patented in 2014 by BGI as the earliest technology patent in China that applies high-throughput sequencing to the prevention and control of thalassemia, won the 22^nd China Patent Excellence Award.

A team of reseachers recovered water, sediment, rocks and biological samples, as part of research into the deepest part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench where the water depth reach 10,000 meters.
Wang Jian, chairman and co-founder of BGI, Xu Xun, director of BGI-Research, and Liu Shanshan, deputy general manager of Qingdao BGI, joined other scientists in this exploration.
67-year-old Wang Jian is the first scientist in China to complete an expedition to the South and North Pole regions of the earth, to summit Mount Everest, and to dive to the deepest part of the world's waters.

The unveiling and cooperation signing ceremony of BGI-Research Sanya was successfully held in Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Sanya, Hainan. The cooperation will focus on major strategic needs and scientific frontiers such as agricultural seed industry, deep-sea science and technology, synthetic biology, etc., which will be driven by the global big data center of zoology and flora, and promote scientific discovery with technological inventions to drive industrial development. The scientific research and industrial development of Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City will be supported by this new R&D institution integrating production, education and research.

Free breast screening was provided for 2,000 women aged 25-65 in Shanxi Province in a women’s health project undertaken by BGI. Screening focused on those women with greatest breast cancer susceptibility and provided screening for BRCA1/2. The program aims to care for women's health, reduce the risk of breast cancer in high-risk women, and further improve early breast cancer screening.

Serbia's Prime Minister opened the country’s first genome sequencing center, a cooperation project with BGI. Based on gene sequencing, the center will conduct genetic disease screening, cancer screening, infectious disease prevention and control, and other precision medical services, applying sequencing and data analysis in the field of scientific research, clinical use, disease control, biopharmaceuticals, environment, and agriculture.

The International Organization for Standardization Biotechnology Committee (ISO/TC 276) officially released the international standard ISO/TS 20388:2021 "Biotechnology - Biobanking - Requirements for animal biological material". This is another international standard for the preservation of animal samples after China released the first technical specification for the preservation of plant samples in the world. The standards were proposed by the China National GeneBank.

Changzhou Jintan district government, the Jiansu Jintan Economic development Zone and BGI-Research signed a tripartite cooperation framework agreement on the construction of the "BGI Synthetic Biology Innovation Center" which will house a synthetic biology industry-university-research innovation incubation center.

BGI launched its 101^st project to benefit people's livelihoods in Hunan’s Yuanling County. Healthy People's Livelihood Project will rely on a Huo-Yan laboratory where BGI will actively create a new platform for public health and lay the foundation for the implementation of precision treatment.