Guo Xueping
The pioneer and leader of two major industrial revolutions in the history of hyaluronic acid, won the second prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award, Wu Jieping-Paul Janssen Medical Research Award, and enjoy special government allowance of the State Council.
Researching on hyaluronic acid (HA) for more than 30 years, he has promoted China to become the largest producer and consumer application country of hyaluronic acid at the beginning of the 21st century. Let hyaluronic acid from the luxury application only used in medicine to cosmetics, care, oral cavity, family planning, food, pets and other fields. To realize the universal benefit of the public, he is a famous figure in the hyaluronic acid industry.
As the chief scientist and deputy general manager of Bloomage Biotech (688363. SH), his colleagues affectionately call him Dr. Guo. He is steady and mature. His stories with hyaluronic acid illuminate the whole world of hyaluronic acid, motivating groups of researchers to devote themselves to this rising field. It also makes the public from the small material of hyaluronic acid to a big world.
Infatuated with research on hyaluronic acid fermentation, let small substances light up the world
In the 1990s, the young Guo Xueping went to attend the conference of the National Society of Industrial Chemistry. An article on fermentation production of hyaluronic acid hit Guo Xueping like a huge wave. He recalled that the report of hyaluronic acid fermentation was like pulling a trigger, triggering that point in the brain. I would immediately start this project when I came back to the research institute. This feeling was very strong.
In fact, Guo Xueping was no stranger to hyaluronic acid. Since the 1980s, he followed his mentor Zhang Tianmin to begin the study of hyaluronic acid extraction. The goal of this study was to extract high-purity hyaluronic acid and applied it to ophthalmic surgery. At that time, the main preparation method of hyaluronic acid was biological extraction from raw materials such as chicken crowns. Only 1kg hyaluronic acid could be extracted from 200kg chicken crowns. Because of the limitation of raw materials, the output was very limited. Guo Xueping thought that if we could produce hyaluronic acid through microbial fermentation, it would greatly increase the production of hyaluronic acid.
(Picture left: Zhang Tianm, Picture right: Guo Xueping)
Zhang Hengchang was a professor and doctoral supervisor of Department of Pharmacy of Shandong University. As for Guo Xueping's idea, he recalled Guo Xueping studied biochemical pharmacy in school, and had never touched fermentation method before. He was equivalent to starting a new field and a new specialty from scratch. We were wondering whether this method be done? But seeing him infatuated and almost fascinated to study the fermentation, my heart was full of expectations for him. Unexpectedly, his instant flash would light up the world at last. But before illuminating the world, it was a long way. Because domestic hyaluronic acid fermentation technology research was still blank, Guo Xueping can only move little by little.
At that time, the institute had no basis for any fermentation. The early equipment was very simple. There was only one simple domestic fermentation tank. Do experiment culture microorganism, it was very easy to infect bacteria. Once infected, it was equivalent to harvest nothing; everything should start from scratch again. For more than one year, Guo Xueping had done almost nothing. Does this experiment at least once a day and every time nothing was left, all was dumped into the sewer. Wasting of time and energy, Guo Xueping said this process was very painful. If you can't persist down, you must give up. This feeling was very emotional.
Overcame the shortage of research materials, equipment, scientific research personnel and fund at that time, Guo Xueping with two assistants began to ponder from small fermentation strains. They groped little by little from mutagenicity, screening, process optimization and control technology. Screening bacteria was like looking for a needle in a haystack. We can only spread a wide net to find all the bacteria libraries at home and abroad and contact others to buy them. He said it took more than one year for this part. It was lucky to screen for a high-yielding strain in more than a year.
One day, Guo Xueping went into the laboratory as usual after experiencing an unknown number of failures. When put hyaluronic acid fermentation broth into alcohol, something like cotton clumps came out. I could see at a glance that hyaluronic acid was made out! At that time, Guo Xueping's excited mood could hardly be expressed in words, and he could not calm down for a long time.
The success of fermentation greatly had improved the production efficiency and scale of hyaluronic acid, greatly reduced the production cost, ended the dependence of extraction method on animal raw materials, reduced the possibility of transmitting diseases from animals, and allergic reactions rarely occurred.
Guo Xueping didn't realize that the hyaluronic acid fermentation technology he pioneered had started an industry storm that changed the world pattern. His research project of Hyaluronic Acid Preparation by Fermentation was soon paid attention by the state and included in the national Eighth Five-Year Plan and Ninth Five-Year Plan scientific and technological breakthrough plan. Later, he won the second prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award. Guo Xueping was awarded Wu Jieping-Paul Janssen Medical Research Award.
Under the leadership of Guo Xueping, the production rate of hyaluronic acid fermentation of Bloomage Biotech has developed from less than 3g/L to 12-14g/L, the fermentation cycle has been shortened year by year, the product quality is leading in the world, and has comprehensive global registration qualification. In 2019, the global market share of hyaluronic acid raw materials of Bloomage Biotech reached 39%, ranking first in the world for many consecutive years.
The greatest significance of a new technology development is that it can revolutionize the industry and change people's lives. In the development process of China's hyaluronic acid industry, there is no doubt that it is Guo Xueping and his fermentation technology initiated in China that caused the transformation storm of the hyaluronic acid industry, which made the Chinese hyaluronic acid industry take the lead in the world, and hyaluronic acid began to enter the life of the general public.
Enzymatic Digestion Technology is an Industry Revolution Born in Vanishing Hyaluronic Acid.
Many people know that hyaluronic acid is widely used in the field of skin care, with outstanding moisturizing and repairing effect. But many consumers do not know that because of limited technology in the early stage, the hyaluronic acid contained in most daily skin care products is generally macromolecular and middle molecular hyaluronic acid, with certain moisturizing effect, but only in the skin surface water lock, unable to penetrate dermal layer, difficult to achieve deep moisturizing effect.
To achieve better transdermal absorption rates, smaller molecules of hyaluronic acid are needed to be deeply absorbed by the skin. However, at the technical level at that time, the molecular weight of hyaluronic acid could not be controlled at will. The small molecule of hyaluronic acid could only be obtained by chemical method (acid and base). However, this method is easy to destroy the molecular structure of hyaluronic acid, high impurities, high energy cost, making it difficult to mass production.
In order to further meet the market demand, Guo Xueping led Bloomage Biotech research and development team to realize the mass production of oligo hyaluronic acid for the first time in 2011. The strong point of Enzyme Digestion Method is that it can freely control the molecular weight of hyaluronic acid and obtain different molecular weight hyaluronic acid, which greatly opens up the application field of hyaluronic acid and initiates another industrial revolution of hyaluronic acid.
Speaking of the birth of enzyme cutting method, it actually came from Guo Xueping 30 years ago when extracting hyaluronic acid from chicken crowns mistake. At that time, he kept the viscous hyaluronic acid extract in the container and came home from work. The next morning, he found that the hyaluronic acid extract was diluted and hyaluronic acid disappeared, resulting in the failure of the extraction and purification test. For this mistake, Guo Xueping has been upset about how the hyaluronic acid disappeared?
He later found the fact that hyaluronic acid does not disappear but enzymolysis. During the experiment, the microorganism produces enzymes that break down hyaluronic acid.
The discovery in this mistake gave Guo Xueping a great inspiration. Under the efforts of Guo Xueping and his team day and night, the enzyme digestion method was finally developed successfully. He uses hyaluronidase to specifically degrade the structure of hyaluronic acid, solving the problems of structural destruction of hyaluronic acid produced by chemical degradation method. The degradation cycle was also shortened from 12-15 days to 5-6 hours. The ability to reduce costs and increase efficiency is extraordinary. The enzyme digestion technology also won the highest award in patent field-China Patent Gold Award (Patent No.: ZL201210317032.5).
Guo Xueping is most proud that Bloomage Biotech has more than 200 varieties and specifications of hyaluronic acid raw materials, which can produce the largest molecular weight of more than 4 million Da and smallest hyaluronic acid in the world. These raw materials can be used in cancer medicine, tissue engineering, surgery, cosmetics, food and other different fields, exerting the unique effect of hyaluronic acid.
I hope everyone in the team can take charge of a department.
It is understood that Guo Xueping was a talented young college student. He was admitted to Shandong Medical University (now Shandong University) at the age of 15 in 1980, when the college entrance examination had just resumed. Later he obtained the doctor's degree from Shandong University and became the master's tutor of Shandong University.
Guo Xueping still keeps his academic demeanor, rigorous and pure, treats the team members like his own students, and constantly gives them guidance and care in their work and life.
Guo Xueping often says that in Bloomage Biotech for so many years, I work together with the research and development team; watching them grow slowly, carry on the identity transformation. Some of them used to be young men, but now they have become father. And the girls have become mothers one after another. I hope that every member of the R&D team, whether in work or in life, can produce achievements and take the lead by themselves. That's what I'd like to see.
From the team members' point of view, although Guo Xueping rarely has harsh criticism, the team members still revere him. Dr. Guo has strict requirements for us. The R&D personnel didn't find any problems in the R&D or project development process. In Dr. Guo's opinion, this is a very simple problem. Such a simple problem cannot be found out, thus turning the way, which is incomprehensible to him.
He's smart, his memory is very good. We dare not be careless, or you wouldn't know what he asked you.
As the chief scientist of Bloomage Biotech, rigor and rationality permeate Guo Xueping's character. In his view, this strictness is more zero tolerance to the trial and error cost of a biotech enterprise.
Whether it's research and development or management, judgment is first and foremost the most important. If there are 100 options, and 99 trials and errors, the fool can also try out the last one. The business collapsed before you tried 99.You is not allowed to make mistakes.
Guo Xueping has always had a strong sense of mission to enterprises, consumers and his own scientific research. The responsibility lies on his shoulders. When under pressure, he pays more attention to self-digesting and letting the team light up. And for the research and development of hyaluronic acid, Guo Xueping did extraordinary persistence; dozens of diving into various experiments, constantly try various methods with joy.
Bloomage Biotech has a R&D team of more than 300 people at present. Under the training and guidance of Guo Xueping, batches of R&D personnel in different fields have reached a certain level. They have named the R&D studio by their own name, specializing in one field.
In the 1990s, Guo Xueping even spent more than 10,000 yuan on a computer to receive the most cutting-edge academic information from abroad. At that time, his salary was only a few hundred yuan, and it would cost him almost a month to look up foreign scientific research literature on the Internet in those days.
A behavior that willingness to pay for knowledge cannot be defined by business logic. For the rational strict Guo Xueping, it actually is not incompatible, even with some romantic color.
Individual struggle is inseparable from the historical process; the development of the enterprise can also see the shadow of the times. In the future economic situation, Bloomage Biotech, a leading enterprise in the industry, will still face more business challenges and capital considerations. Guo Xueping always believes that an enterprise can develop for a long time only by continuously carrying out scientific and technological innovation and product innovation.
When I just graduated from the university, I still did research and research. It may take eight years to develop a product. With the growing development of the company, it is necessary to combine the short and short projects in the enterprise. For short projects, like functional skin care products, we can promote hundreds of new products in a year, and nearly 100 new ones come into the market. As our products become more and more popular, the market demand is increasing, which requires us to have a more powerful scientific research team to match the development speed of the company. It also requires us to do scientific research management from the perspective of the development of a listed company and grasp the R&D and innovation of the project from the strategic direction.
In a recent interview, Guo Xueping was asked what is the ideal state of hyaluronic acid development in his view. More hyaluronic acid can be produced to enable consumers to realize hyaluronic acid freedom as soon as possible, he said with smile.
