Chen Yan and the Cattle110K Chip for Chinese Beef Cattle

Who is Chen Yan?

Chen Yan (陈燕) is an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in Beijing. One report on Huaxi cattle and the gene chip places her on Li Junya's cattle genetics and breeding team, responsible for identifying and evaluating cattle germplasm resources. A later report in the Guangming Daily mobile edition describes her work on gene chip development and says she joined from the Beijing Genomics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The two reports name the research unit slightly differently, as the Beijing Institute of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine in one and the Institute of Animal Sciences in the other. Her education and publications were not found, so this entry is marked thin and keeps to what the reports say.

Why a reference population comes first

Genomic selection predicts an animal's breeding value from its DNA instead of waiting for its own performance. The catas.cn report quotes Chen saying that breeders must have a reference herd, because only with a reference can each animal be judged good or bad. In the report's explanation, the reference herd pairs trait records with genotype data, which supports early selection.

The Guangming Daily account gives the practical payoff. Genomic data lets breeders predict key economic traits in calves instead of waiting years to observe adult cattle.

How the Cattle110K chip came about

The catas.cn report says the team first built a 10K low-density chip. It had too few loci, and all of them came from the existing 770K chip, so it could not meet breeding needs. The team then added functional loci linked to important economic traits in Huaxi cattle, producing a dedicated whole-genome chip with about 110,000 loci.

At the time of that report the chip was in a second round of testing, with wider promotion planned afterward. It was stated to reach an accuracy of at least 60 percent for major economic traits and to carry fully independent intellectual property.

• 10K chip: too few loci, all drawn from the 770K chip.
• 110K chip: functional loci for Huaxi economic traits added.
• Price at the earlier stage: roughly 400 yuan per chip, with a decrease expected as volume grew.
• Imported chips once cost over 3,000 yuan per animal, per the same report.

What the 2026 report says about results

The 2026 Guangming Daily account says Cattle110K was completed at the end of 2022 and is China's first commercial beef cattle gene chip. It puts the price under 200 yuan per chip against about 3,000 yuan for imported chips, and says domestic market share reached 85 percent after the 2023 launch. Chen is quoted as saying that after the research succeeded, foreign related products dropped significantly in price.

The two price figures, about 400 yuan and under 200 yuan, come from reports of different dates and stages, and this profile does not reconcile them. The direction is clear: the domestic chip undercut imports sharply.

Huaxi cattle and the wider program

The chip serves the Huaxi program, a 43-year effort, from 1978 to 2021, that produced a beef breed with national approval in December 2021. Huaxi bulls are reported to have taken the top price at four straight national bull auctions, and the breed was exported to Laos. Frozen semen is reported at a 25 percent market share.

For comparison with breed improvement in other countries, see the ranching section of farm.FM and a farm.FM story about gene chips in beef breeding.

What is not known

Chen's degrees, dates of appointment and individual papers were not found in the reports opened. The statements above are drawn from two press reports, which present figures in a journalistic form and may simplify the science.