Preface to the special issue: biotechnology of plastic waste degradation and valorization / 生物工程学报

Synthetic plastics have been widely used in various fields of the national economy and are the pillar industry. However, irregular production, plastic product use, and plastic waste piling have caused long-term accumulation in the environment, contributing considerably to the global solid waste stream and environmental plastic pollution, which has become a global problem to be solved. Biodegradation has recently emerged as a viable disposal method for a circular plastic economy and has become a thriving research area. In recent years, important breakthroughs have been made in the screening, isolation, and identification of plastic-degrading microorganisms/enzyme resources and their further engineering, which provide new ideas and solutions for treating microplastics in the environment and the closed-loop bio-recycling of waste plastics. On the other hand, the use of microorganisms (pure cultures or consortia) to further transform different plastic degradants into biodegradable plastics and other compounds with high added value is of great significance, promoting the development of a plastic recycling economy and reducing the carbon emission of plastics in their life cycle. We edited a Special Issue on the topic of "Biotechnology of Plastic Waste Degradation and Valorization", focusing on the researches progress in three aspects: Mining microbial and enzyme resources for plastic biodegradation, Design and engineering of plastic depolymerase, and biological high-value transformation of plastic degradants. In total, 16 papers have been collected in this issue including reviews, comments, and research articles, which provide reference and guidance for further development of plastic waste degradation and valorization biotechnology.

Advances in biodegradation of polyolefin plastics / 生物工程学报

Polyolefin plastics are a group of polymers with C-C backbone that have been widely used in various areas of daily life. Due to their stable chemical properties and poor biodegradability, polyolefin plastic waste continues to accumulate worldwide, causing serious environmental pollution and ecological crises. In recent years, biological degradation of polyolefin plastics has attracted considerable attention. The abundant microbial resources in the nature offer the possibility of biodegradation of polyolefin plastic waste, and microorganisms capable of degrading polyolefin have been reported. This review summarizes the research progress on the biodegradation microbial resources and the biodegradation mechanisms of polyolefin plastics, presents the current challenges in the biodegradation of polyolefin plastics, and provides an outlook on future research directions.

Practice and exploration of the " 1+ 6+ N" medical alliance cooperation system of a hospital in Xinjiang / 中华医院管理杂志

Medical alliances constitute a vertical integration of regional medical resources, and an effective means to promote the tiered medical services. As one of the largest tertiary hospitals in Xinjiang, a hospital has gradually built a " 1+ 6+ N" medical alliance cooperative system fitting the geographical characteristics of Xinjiang since 2018. The system was based on the hospital, made county-level medical institutions as the hub, primary medical and health units as the focus, and telemedicine as the bridge. It turned a telemedicine service platform as the medium, integrating such service segments, as offline practices of experts like clinical teaching, ward rounds, surgical guidance and discipline construction, and as online practices like remote consultation, remote diagnosis, remote education, and remote new technology training among others. Then these segments were integrated into such cooperative models as the remote cooperative medical alliances, specialist-cooperative medical alliances, inter-department co-construction medical alliances, precision-based assistance medical alliances, urban medical group type of medical alliances, and " alliance-consortium" integrated development medical alliances. These practices enabled the expansion and primary support of high-quality medical resources. By June 2022, the hospital had established cooperation via medical alliances with 285 medical institutions at all levels. The implementation of this cooperation mechanism has effectively improved the medical service capacity, diagnosis and treatment capacity of difficult and critical diseases, diagnosis and treatment homogeneity and remote diagnosis capacity in the region, as well as the smooth and orderly progress of the tiered medical services and two-way referrals within a medical alliance.