There is still a long way to go on the road to understanding life

There is still a long way to go on the road to understanding life

On the road of understanding life, how long is there still to go?

Thirty years ago, people said: The 21st century is the century of life sciences
.

This expression contains a kind of pride that is about to master the code of life, and it also unfolds a beautiful picture of health, controllable, and prolonged life for people

Explore, let human beings live healthy, happy and quality

Explore, let human beings live healthy, happy and quality

Liu Ying, a professor at Peking University's School of Future Technology, said: "I am particularly interested in life.
I am curious about what is happening inside the human body at all times.
I especially want to understand ourselves
.

"

Liu Ying is mainly engaged in cell biology, researching human metabolism and aging
.

"Cells are the most basic structural and functional unit that constitutes a living body

Liu Ying believes that it is crucial to study how cells adapt to the surrounding environment
.

"Many cancer cells can continue to grow in an environment with limited nutrients, causing excessive cell proliferation and division

In 1865, Mendel published a hypothesis of genetic laws based on pea hybridization experiments, and genetics was born
.

Subsequently, the combination of genetics and evolution gave birth to molecular biology and recombinant DNA technology

It took humans more than 100 years to complete the description of the overall picture of the genome, which has changed our view of life, allowing us to rethink what life is and see a clearer and new life picture
.

However, human beings are still powerless to "life" in many cases-from cell research to the entire field of life sciences, the cognition of life is still based on limited genetic information
.

Scientists have crossed the barriers of limited genomes and tried to reveal the reason why life exhibits infinite development and differentiation behavior

"I saw a video some time ago.
Some people say that the life science research has reached a 90% level of understanding of life
.

" Professor Yang Maojun of the School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University could not agree with this: "Based on my personal understanding and science According to the law of research, the current understanding of life in life sciences is still in its infancy and cannot be quantified

So, what can life sciences do for us? Yang Maojun said, in fact, this question should be asked, what do we humans want the subject of life sciences to do for us? "Of course it is to live a healthy, happy and quality
life.

The development of life sciences in these years is obvious to all.

Challenges, the understanding of the operating mechanism of living organisms is far from insufficient

Challenges, the understanding of the operating mechanism of living organisms is far from insufficient

Scientific research always explores the "unknown", but there are often many "unknowns" in the "known"
.

In Liu Ying's view, the more you study in the field of life sciences, the more you are in awe of life.
"Life is really exquisite.
You can't imagine how it can be so smart and control every step so delicately
.

"

But "the more you study and the more you know about life, the more ignorant you will find yourself", "some conventional concepts or phenomena have been continuously revised and improved in recent years
.
"

For example, the Warburg effect, that is, cancer cells mainly provide energy and produce lactic acid by degrading sugar (breaking down glucose)
.
But this way of providing energy produces very little energy
.
Because more than 90% of the energy of most normal cells comes from mitochondria
.

Why do cancer cells take the route of sugar degradation? Liu Ying introduced that previous interpretations believed that when cancer cells grow into a large tumour, many cells are crowded together, especially the cells in the middle of the tumour, which cannot be exposed to too much oxygen, so there is no way to use mitochondria to provide energy
.

"With the research in recent years, scientists have gradually discovered that the inside of the tumor will promote the formation of capillaries, and the oxygen supply is not a lot
.
The reason why we choose the way of sugar degradation is because the metabolites during this period will participate in other biological macromolecules.
It can synthesize its own DNA and protein
.
With these substances, cancer cells can divide from one cell into two cells
.
” Liu Ying explained
.

"With the deepening of research, many life science phenomena that we thought we had already understood are actually being rewritten
.
There are still many unknowns
.
Although we study aging, what is the essence of aging? What kind of phenomena can we use? Ways to delay aging? On the human level, this is still an unresolved problem that needs to be resolved
.
With the intensification of population aging, many aging-related diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, are also a major social problem
.
"Liu Ying said
.

Yang Maojun admits that the biggest challenge facing the field of life sciences is that our understanding of the internal operating mechanisms of living organisms is far from enough.
"For example, the five terminal diseases recognized in the world today: motor neuron disease (gradual freezing disease), cancer, AIDS , Leukemia and rheumatism are listed as the world’s five most difficult diseases by the World Health Organization
.
With the development of technology, leukemia can be cured by cellular immunotherapy or (and) bone marrow transplantation, and AIDS can also be effectively controlled
.
I believe that with With further research by scientists, other diseases may also make significant progress in the near future
.
"

AIDS AIDS

In terms of disciplinary development, what new challenges are still facing life sciences? Yang Maojun believes that the development of any discipline is nothing more than two dimensions.
One is to study deeper and more subtle, such as molecular, atomic and even quantum research; and the other is to extend outward, such as life sciences and life sciences.
Integration and intersection of various disciplines
.
"The challenge facing the life science profession is that as we explore the unknown, we face more and more unknowns
.
" Yang Maojun said
.

Pioneering, an explosive breakthrough in life sciences

Pioneering, an explosive breakthrough in life sciences

From "Darwin's theory of evolution" to break the mystery of life, to "cell theory" to reveal the commonality of organisms, "Mendel's law" to reveal the law of biological genetic changes
.
Then in 1953, Watson and Crick made his famous DNA double helix model, to determine the "central dogma" life movement, opening up new molecular biology of the 20th century era
.
Every major breakthrough in the field of life sciences has a milestone meaning
.

era

Liu Ying believes that every technological breakthrough will be accompanied by a breakthrough in basic scientific research
.
"Decades ago, the resolution of microscopy imaging was very low.
At most, you can only observe the structure inside the cell.
Without fluorescent dyes, you can't see what's happening inside the cell
.
But with the continuous improvement and breakthrough of microscopy technology Now, through a high-resolution microscope, you can truly see the movement of various organelles inside the cell, the fusion of cells with each other, etc.
When
each cell divides, you can even see each copy of the chromosome The whole process of division
.
"

"With technological breakthroughs, we have truly entered a multi-modal, from the micro to the macro view, the overall description of life phenomena and a more in-depth understanding of the level
.
I think the life sciences of the 21st century are compared to what we said before.
There may be explosive or leaping breakthroughs
.
"

"As a scientific researcher, we have no way of predicting how to make a breakthrough.
We can only explore a little bit by ourselves
.
We try to experiment little by little every day, even trial and error
.
In the process, we learn from experience and lessons, master new information, and constantly Deepen the understanding of life science issues
.
This is a process from quantitative change to qualitative change.
After a certain degree of information is accumulated, some breakthrough discoveries may be made
.
"

"The development of science cannot be estimated by human beings, but the charm of science lies in its uncertainty
.
" Liu Ying said
.

In Yang Maojun’s view, due to the current mutual intersection, influence and penetration of various disciplines of natural sciences, and the continuous emergence of various new technologies, future life science research will continue to be carried out at the same time at the micro and macro levels, and there will be mutual interactions.
The trend of convergence
.
He said: "The future development direction is nothing more than to let humans know more about themselves, such as brain science; and enable us to have a stronger ability to fight various diseases, such as gene therapy, artificial intelligence applied to drug research and development, etc.

"

"There is no doubt that life sciences will definitely create a new era, making the 21st century truly a century of life sciences
.
" Yang Maojun said
.
"This global outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, which has claimed millions of lives, will undoubtedly become an opportunity to improve the in-depth research of life sciences to the national strategic level
.
The key research and development plan and the four newly established national laboratories have all made a good layout for the country's future life science research, and the rest needs to be unswervingly continued
.
"

As a scientific researcher, Yang Maojun’s most intuitive feeling is that in recent years, especially after SARS in 2003, the state has significantly increased its support for life science research
.
"China's life sciences basic research and applied research have achieved a lot of fruitful results over the years, so it can achieve world-renowned achievements in the face of the new crown pneumonia epidemic
.
From a development perspective, there will still be a variety of things in the future.
, Divided diseases will threaten human life and health
.
The key to solving and breaking through lies in the active guidance of the state, so that the vast number of scientific and technological workers can calm down and do truly meaningful research
.
" Yang Maojun said in the end
.