Chinese scientists have put forward the Dummy Chinese project for improving the nation's medical level and promoting the informationization and modernization for China's medical industry, Professor Tian Jie from the institute of automation Chinese Academy of Sciences said in Beijing on April 23.

According to Pro.Tian, the technology of dummy human body is to create a dummy human for medical researches by using the computer analog technology, with the digital information collected from the real human bodies. This technology will also help hospitals make direct, visible, and exact diagnoses.

The dummy body will have the different characters on people and areas because the data are collected from the real human bodies.

The United States has launched its Dummy American Project since the mid and late 1980s and publicized the male and female organ-slice optical photographs in 1994 and 1996 respectively. The ROK, which started its five-year Visible Korean Project in 2000, has entered the key test period. And Japan will also launch its ten-year project this year.

The Dummy Chinese Project, if approved, will certainly fills in China's gap which has hitherto existed in this field.

First sponsored by Wu Jieping, president of the Medical School of Tsinghua University, the Dummy Chinese Project was put forward by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and Peking University jointly. Currently, the basic work for this project has been well prepared and the data will be collected in half a year to one year with the investment of RMB 20 million yuan (US$2.42 million), Tian added.

(People's Daily April 24, 2002)