The case of a Chinese national accused of stealing cancer research from a Boston lab is part of a “systemic threat” from the Chinese government, which is working around the clock to take American technological secrets and intellectual property, President Trump’s science adviser tells the Herald.

“I am convinced there’s a systemic threat,” Kelvin Droegemeier, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said on Tuesday in Boston. “The FBI tells us that there are over 1,000 cases involving China.”

“It’s really about the Chinese government trying to influence our system, trying to take ideas, proposals … theft of intellectual property, theft of physical materials like purportedly happened in this case,” Droegemeier said, citing the recent Boston case in federal court.

A 29-year-old Chinese national here on a Harvard-sponsored student visa, Zaosong Zheng, is accused of stealing vials of cancer research specimens from a lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, according to federal officials who say they believe the Chinese government is involved.

Zheng isn’t the only Chinese national recently accused of stealing trade secrets. A Lexington man born in China is fighting charges of stealing trade secrets from Massachusetts tech giant Analog Devices after pleading not guilty in June.

Federal prosecutors have warned that Boston is a rich target for Chinese economic espionage, and the fight against intellectual property theft is a major part of Trump’s trade war with Beijing.

“We have to be cognizant of the fact that we do have these threats,” Droegemeier said. “We live in a world very different today than we did even 10 years ago, so we want to have the proper amount of vigilance and oversight.”

“We have to teach people, we have to be vigilant, we have to do some auditing of these things, and there have to be consequences,” he said.

Disclosure is a key area moving forward, Droegemeier said. Some foreign talent programs can be “problematic,” he noted.

“By disclosing, you can then make a determination of whether or not that is a problematic talent program,” Droegemeier said.

To fight off this growing threat of foreign government influence on research, the National Science and Technology Council — which Droegemeier chairs — in May created the Joint Committee on the Research Environment.

The committee is working on establishing policies for federal agencies and best practices for universities — for instance, teaching faculty members what to watch out for.

“‘If somebody calls me from Country X, can I collaborate with them?'” he said researchers should ask themselves. “We need to make sure that they have very clear guidance, and sharing these practices as well as policies, so those are the kinds of things we’re working on.

“The whole idea is basically having people coming and knowing what the rules of the road are, requiring that they live by those rules, and then have consequences if they don’t,” Droegemeier said.