Zhongke Aohui: 30 Years of Pursuing Light—Breaking Through the “Bottleneck” in High-End Scientific Research Instrument Technology | Cuiheng Intelligent Manufacturing

Because of light, we are able to see the world. Light serves as the medium through which we perceive the world and as the messenger of matter. The light that originates from matter reflects the principles of the physical world. Discovering and understanding the trajectories of photons can help people grasp the laws governing a particular scientific field—but this is difficult to achieve with the naked eye alone.

In the Zhongshan Cuiheng New Area, there is a national-level high-tech enterprise—Guangdong Zhongke Aohui Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Zhongke Aohui”). Through the research and development and production of scientific instruments, the company helps people track the trajectories of light and, by employing fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, reveals the temporal and spatial relationships among photons. This enables the analysis and understanding of underlying principles in the fields of biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, and micro- and nano-science.

Zhongke Aohui was founded by Dr. Huang Shaohui, a scientist who returned from overseas and is originally from Xiaolan, Zhongshan. In 2018, Zhongke Aohui successfully developed and launched the world’s first desktop fluorescence correlation spectrometer, CorTector. ^TM SX100 has broken the “bottleneck” situation in the high-end scientific research instrument sector, previously dominated by foreign companies. Thanks to its outstanding performance, Zhongke Aohui’s products have already been sold to U.S. research institutions and pharmaceutical companies. In 2022, Zhongke Aohui entered a period of rapid growth, with its customers primarily consisting of top-tier research institutions both domestically and internationally, and its market position has gradually begun to take shape.

Entrepreneurs Emerging from the Lab

Huang Shaohui has been a bit busy lately. As the product gradually gains market recognition, the number of customers seeking cooperation through door-to-door visits has also been steadily increasing. To further expand the market, he and his team are simultaneously accelerating the development of new products and recruiting new team members, leaving their daily schedules packed to the brim.

Focusing simultaneously on technology and product R&D, as well as on market development—this has now become a task that Huang Shaohui handles with ease. Yet, at the very beginning of his entrepreneurial journey, this scientist—who had spent more than 30 years conducting research in the lab—was far from as composed as he is today. Transitioning from "doing research" to taking center stage in the corporate world, Huang Shaohui has undergone quite a few transformations.

Huang Shaohui’s ancestral home is Xiaolan in Zhongshan. In 1989, he enrolled in the Department of Biochemistry at Sun Yat-sen University. In 1993, Huang Shaohui transferred to the University of Kansas in the United States, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. During his time at the University of Kansas, Huang Shaohui gained exposure to a wide range of research projects and eventually stayed on at the university’s Department of Molecular Life Sciences to pursue a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Cell Biology, and Molecular Biology.

Huang Shaohui introduces the company’s high-end scientific research instruments. Photo by Lian Wanqing, Southern Paker.

During his time at the University of Kansas, although Huang Shaohui’s research focused on issues in the field of biochemistry, the scientific tools he used daily were all technologies from the field of physics.

“Tools are crucial in scientific research. According to statistics, one-third of Nobel Prizes are linked to new research technologies and instruments,” said Huang Shaohui. The breadth and depth of scientific research are closely tied to research instruments—only with new tools can we uncover new knowledge.

1998 In that year, driven by his passion for scientific research and technology, Huang Shaohui joined the Department of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University in the United States to pursue postdoctoral research in fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy, making a cross-disciplinary transition from biochemical research into biophysics.

At Cornell University, he joined the laboratory led by Professor Watt W. Webb—a distinguished expert in fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (commonly known as “FCS”) and a member of all three U.S. National Academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences—where he embarked on research in multiphoton microscopy and FCS. It was right here that Huang Shaohui began his journey "in pursuit of light," laying the foundation for his later return to China to start his own business.

FCS It finds wide applications in fields such as biology, medicine, chemistry, materials science, drug discovery, photophysics, and micro- and nanoscale sciences. As long as a substance can be labeled with fluorescence, FCS can quantitatively analyze—within trace solution samples or single living cells—the molar concentrations of chemical small molecules, biomacromolecules, viruses, nanoparticles, bacteria, and other samples, as well as their diffusion coefficients/hydrodynamic radii, interaction affinities, molecular conformations, and conformational transition rates.

At Cornell University, Huang Shaohui recognized the appeal of FCS, and that was precisely when the seed for promoting the industrialization of this technology was planted in his heart.

Thereafter, Huang Shaohui served as an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States, and as a Research Scientist at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He also concurrently served as the Director of the Center for Lung Imaging and Morphology at the institute.

Over more than 30 years abroad, Huang Shaohui has accumulated extensive experience in laboratory research. In 2013, Huang Shaohui was named an “Outstanding Introduced Technical Talent” by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. With the introduction and guidance of Academician Xu Tao, former director of the Institute of Biophysics at the CAS and current Executive Deputy Director of the Guangzhou National Laboratory, Huang returned to China and embarked on an entrepreneurial journey, spearheading the industrialization of FCS technology.

Break the “bottleneck” situation in high-end scientific research instruments.

The path of entrepreneurship is not easy, but Huang Shaohui has always remained true to his heartfelt desire to contribute to scientific and technological innovation in China.

Huang Shaohui pays close attention to China’s scientific research endeavors. He pointed out that, according to the Nature Index released in 2022 by the prestigious international academic journal *Nature*, mainland China has, for the first time, surpassed the United States to rank first globally in three key indicators of research output—total number of published papers, the number of papers in the top 10% by citation count, and the number of papers in the top 1% by application count—in both quantity and quality. However, in stark contrast to this thriving and dynamic research landscape, China’s R&D and production of high-end scientific instruments remain relatively “blank,” with more than 90% of such high-end instruments still relying on imports.

As tools for scientific research, the importance of scientific instruments goes without saying. In Huang Shaohui’s view, this situation is rather unfavorable to domestic scientific innovation efforts; once foreign manufacturers adopt restrictive measures, domestic research activities could very well find themselves in a predicament with no suitable instruments available.

Driven by the original aspiration to break through the “bottleneck” situation in China’s scientific research, Huang Shaohui launched the FCS startup project, developing and manufacturing a domestically produced FCS instrument—the desktop fluorescence correlation spectroscopy single-molecule analyzer. In 2017, the investment promotion team of the Cuiheng New Area located Huang Shaohui at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. After thorough discussions, the two sides ultimately reached a consensus. Led by Huang Shaohui, Zhongke Aohui eventually settled in the eastern area of the Cuiheng New Area (Ma'an Island).

From laboratory technology to a market-ready product—the first hurdle that Huang Shaohui’s team faced when starting their business. Although Huang Shaohui possessed extensive scientific research knowledge and experience, transforming a laboratory technology into a standardized, marketable product required systematically addressing the engineering challenges involved in both the product’s software and hardware components. After founding Zhongke Aohui, Huang Shaohui successively recruited technical talent from the fields of optics, electronics, mechanical engineering, computing, and biology, and independently designed and developed all of the product’s software and hardware.

Huang Shaohui (left) and R&D staff debug the product software. Photo provided by Lian Wanqing, Southern Picture Taker.

With the support of the Cuiheng New Area’s entrepreneurship initiatives, Zhongke Aohui has established office, R&D, and production facilities covering nearly 2,000 square meters. It has also built an engineering center and a public service platform equipped with high-end scientific research equipment and medical devices, as well as an R&D facility and GMP-compliant cleanroom for in vitro diagnostic reagents. These facilities provide the material foundation for the R&D and production of high-end scientific instruments and medical devices. After overcoming numerous challenges, Zhongke Aohui has successfully launched its first product—the desktop fluorescence correlation spectroscopy single-molecule analyzer, CorTector. ^TM SX100 was ultimately born in the Cuiheng New Area. After continuous optimization, CorTector has now been developed. ^TM The localization rate of parts for the three generations of products—SX100, SX200, and SX300—has reached over 99%.

Compared with similar products manufactured by international industry giants such as Zeiss, PicoQuant, and ISS, the desktop fluorescence correlation spectroscopy instrument developed by Zhongke Aohui represents a global first. It boasts advantages such as simple operation, compact size, and high cost-effectiveness, making it highly competitive. The product quickly gained market recognition. Zhongke Aohui’s very first customer was the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Since then, top U.S. research institutions and companies—including AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School—have successively joined Zhongke Aohui’s client roster.

Domestic research institutions have also gradually come to recognize Zhongke Aohui. This year alone, newly acquired domestic clients include Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Fudan University, University of Macau, South China University of Technology, Shanghai National Center for Protein Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences—Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory in Hainan Province, and Zhongke Zhongshan Institute for Drug Innovation, among other Chinese universities and research institutions. Previously, Zhongke Aohui’s domestic clients have also included Peking University, Hunan Normal University, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Cancer and Basic Medical Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Northwest Plateau Biology Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory in Guangdong Province.

Heading Toward the "Blue Ocean" of a Wider Market

Although the first product is gradually gaining market recognition, Huang Shaohui’s entrepreneurial journey hasn’t come to a halt yet. In his view, there’s still a long road ahead—from the product’s launch to establishing a solid foothold in the market—and it will take painstaking effort to get there.

Improving product reliability and stability to meet customer needs is the key for Huang Shaohui’s team to gain a competitive edge in the market. Take CorTector as an example. ^TM Take the SX100 as an example—it underwent numerous adjustments and optimizations before finally becoming a “hit product” widely recognized by customers. Stability and ease of use are the hallmarks of CorTector. ^TM SX100’s two secret weapons. Huang Shaohui says, CorTector. ^TM The optical path correction accuracy of the SX100 must reach 1 micrometer—just one-tenth the diameter of a human hair. When the company’s product first participated in an overseas trade show, after being transported over long distances and unpacked, it unexpectedly failed to operate properly.

To address product stability issues, Huang Shaohui’s team conducted multiple rounds of optimization and adjustments in areas such as industrial design and the precision of component manufacturing, ultimately resulting in the current stable model. Subsequent products were shipped from China to the University of California, San Francisco; during cross-border transportation, the optical path accuracy of the instrument changed by less than half a micrometer. Previously, manual calibration of the optical path for the FCS laboratory prototype used to take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Today, the instrument’s fully automated optical path calibration takes only three minutes. Moreover, data analysis for FCS experiments was once a significant challenge in application. However, the FCS software—developed independently by Zhongke Aohui—now enables one-click data analysis, greatly lowering the barrier to entry for using FCS technology.

The Honor Wall of Zhongke Aohui. Photo provided by Lian Wanqing, Southern Photographer.

CorTector ^TM SX Currently, the product series is primarily targeted at the research sector. As the team led by Huang Shaohui gains a deeper understanding of market demands, its product development scope has gradually expanded. At present, Zhongke Aohui is collaborating with well-known pharmaceutical companies both domestically and internationally to develop high-throughput drug-screening instruments, providing innovative technologies and instruments for screening small molecules, live cells, and single-molecule drugs. Once it enters the pharmaceutical sector, Zhongke Aohui will have even greater market potential.

In addition, Zhongke Aohui is collaborating with Harvard Medical School to apply single-molecule fluorescence technology to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers, with the potential to provide an early warning seven years before symptoms appear in patients. As China’s aging population becomes increasingly prominent, this represents a new exploration for Zhongke Aohui as it ventures into a “blue ocean” market in the medical diagnostics sector.

Although the market is ever-changing, Huang Shaohui’s original aspiration has remained unchanged. Looking ahead, he stated that Zhongke Aohui will continue to launch more domestically produced high-end scientific research instruments, providing domestic researchers and pharmaceutical developers with more independent and reliable tools. Staying true to our original intention, we will keep contributing to solving the nation’s “bottleneck” problems in instrumentation.

[Reported and Written by] Lei Haiquan, Southern Daily Reporter

[Image] Lian Wanqing

[Correspondent] Wang Xiyán