LI Hongzhong (L), Secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee, gave the Outstanding S&T Contribution Award to Prof. GUI Jianfang.

The 2015 Hubei Science and Innovation Conference & Science and Technology Awarding Ceremony was held in Wuhan on August 4, 2016. Prof. GUI Jianfang from Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHB) was honored the Outstanding S&T Contribution Award which is the highest level award given to scientists. LI Hongzhong, Secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee, gave the award to Prof. Gui.    

Two IHB achievements were honored the first prize at the conference. The project “Application and Studies on Nutrition and Feed Technology in Crucian Carp”, led by IHB Prof. XIE Shouqi, was honored the first prize of S&T Progress Award. The project “Research and promotion of the key technology on water pollution control and waterbody ecological restoration engineering”, led by IHB Prof. WU Zhenbin, was honored the first prize of S&T Achievements Promotion Award.    

Dr. GUI Jianfang has focused on the basic biology and biotechnologies with particular emphasis on fish genetics and breeding. As a team leader, he and his colleagues have performed a series of studies on the reproduction and development mechanisms of gibel carp (Carassius auratus gibelio), selected its diverse clone strains, revealed its dual modes of unisexual gynogenesis and sexual reproduction, and thereby clarified the reproduction mechanism for genetic diversity and long-term survival in unisexual organisms. Through an original biotechnology route, he and his colleagues have bred a novel aquaculture variety with great application value. They have identified numerous functional genes in several important aquaculture fishes, exploited new directions of molecular regulation networks that are related to economically important traits and molecular breeding, isolated Y chromosome-specific and X chromosome-specific markers, and thereby created the marker-assisted sex control breeding biotechnology. His research findings have been widely applied in Chinese aquaculture, and made great contribution to fresh water fishery.    

The main contents and innovations of the project “Application and Studies on Nutrition and Feed Technology in Crucian Carp” are described as follows: 1) building a full scale database of apparent digestibility coefficients of 28 common feed stuffs for Chinese aquafeeds industry; 2) giving dietary requirements of 40 kinds of nutrients of crucian carp of different growth stages; 3) studying the mechanism of difference nutrients requirements of different growth stages; 4) giving practical feed formulations and safety limits of feed stuffs of crucian carp of different growth stages; 5) studying feed attractant and immunostimulants to improve feeding rate and disease resistance of fish. The technology of this project has been tested in the wild trials, spread across the market with cooperative enterprises. In the past three years, the profits increased a total of 202.8705 million yuan, and the tax revenue increased 33.427 million yuan.   

The project “Research and promotion of the key technology on water pollution control and waterbody ecological restoration engineering” studied the constructed wetland technology based on the integrated vertical-flow, the ecological restoration technology centered on aquatic plants restoration, and the water network restoration technology combined hydraulic regulation with ecological restoration. This project provided a technology support for the improvement of water environmental quality through system integration, engineering demonstration and technology promotion. The number of constructed engineering, the accumulated water treatment volume, the COD reduction, and the implemented water area have reached to 500, 2.31 × 10⁶ t/d, 6.73 × 10⁴ t/d, and 187.3 km², respectively, which improved the regional ecological environment significantly. 

A group photo of three IHB awardees