Recently, Tu Youyou's team has proposed a practical and feasible treatment plan for the problem of "artemisinin resistance", and has made new progress in areas such as "indications for artemisinin treatment of lupus erythematosus" and "traditional Chinese medicine research papers going global". For a moment, praise from all sides flooded the internet, and all nine artemisinin concept stocks rose, demonstrating the society's attention to technological innovation.

Although every innovation in the scientific instrument industry is not as well-known, domestic instrument manufacturers have not stopped their pace of innovation. Haiguang Instrument, Shanghai Yiyao, Jitian Instrument, Beifen Ruili, Greideman... batches of industry pioneers are steadily advancing, participating in instrument validation and comprehensive evaluation with innovative products. The 17th China Scientific Instruments and Laboratory Equipment Exhibition (CISILE 2019) held this year has set up a dedicated area for showcasing the results of domestic testing instrument validation and comprehensive evaluation on site. All 23 instruments participating in the evaluation of enterprises have made their debut, showcasing the charm of domestic instruments. At the same time, the verification and comprehensive evaluation of domestic instruments are also being carried out and improved step by step in an orderly manner, striving to benefit more domestic instrument manufacturers.



Exhibition Zone for Verification and Comprehensive Evaluation Results of Domestic Testing Instruments

Instrument verification and evaluation is a new thing that requires industry professionals to constantly think and research, identify shortcomings and improvement directions. For this reason, many experts, scholars, and personnel from enterprises and institutions have come up with ideas and strategies to explore various aspects of the current evaluation work, including the assessment dimensions of evaluation, the selection of expert groups, and the entire evaluation process.

At present, the assessment dimensions of the evaluation work mainly include basic performance indicators and characteristic indicators. Among them, the basic performance indicators include instrument stability, baseline noise, detection limit, linear range, accuracy, repeatability, and reproducibility. Characteristic indicators are determined based on the verification of basic indicators, and according to the characteristics, application fields, and data of different instruments, the characteristic indicators that should be included in the investigation and specific verification plans are determined. For example, for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, key parameters such as mass spectrometry accuracy, liquid chromatography flow rate control, column temperature control, and molecular turbo pump durability can be verified. Nowadays, with the orderly development of inspection and evaluation work, some experts and users have put forward higher requirements for the quality of domestic instruments. This means that it is necessary to include the reliability indicators of instruments in the assessment dimension in the future.

In the selection stage, the evaluation organization needs to select experts to form a team, and the evaluation criteria include professional field, technical ability, and work experience. There are also many factors that need to be considered in this process. Firstly, the professional field of the expert must be compatible with the instrument to be verified, but confidentiality and avoidance of suspicion should also be maintained. The list of experts should not be disclosed until the evaluation work is completed. Secondly, the technical ability and professional experience of experts need to have evaluation criteria. The current position of the expert, the scientific research achievements they have published, the awards they have received, and the number of times they have participated in evaluation work can all be used as a basis. In order to improve the efficiency of the evaluation project, it is necessary for the organizer to establish an expert database and credit system, making it more convenient and efficient to select suitable experts from them. Once individual experts encounter problems, such as inadequate verification and evaluation work, or engage in favoritism and profit-making behavior, they can also be blacklisted.

Nowadays, the process of domestic instrument validation and comprehensive evaluation mainly includes application, review, selection, scheme formulation, implementation validation, and comprehensive evaluation. From application to final comprehensive evaluation, it requires a certain amount of time, effort, and cost. Some domestic instrument manufacturers are actively participating in the evaluation and voluntarily bearing the necessary costs, providing great support for the development of the project. However, considering that there are still many small and medium-sized innovative enterprises, their funding and other capabilities are relatively limited. The future domestic instrument evaluation project needs to mobilize the enthusiasm of this group of enterprises, try to improve the efficiency of evaluation, and open the door for more enterprises. Especially, we need to shorten the "last mile" from testing and evaluation to market, so that good instruments that have been tested and evaluated can "go global" and "place orders", and promote the application of domestic instruments in more fields.