Wang Jiawei, the winner of the "Scientific Exploration Award": How to do the scientific research of not "inner volume"?

Text | "China Science News" reporter Li Chenyang Xue Lingxiao Meng Lingxiao

Wang Jiawei has a rare "relaxation" of scientific researchers in the same age.

On the personal homepage of the Molecular Science Innovation Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he did not put a photo of a suit and leather shoes. Only the young face wearing a light -colored cotton T -shirt, holding his chin in his right hand, and smiling in front of the screen. A bouquet of light beating on the face, you can immediately capture his "outline": two stars, a grain of tiger teeth.

Wang Jiawei

In his dictionary, there was no "996", "007", and no "inside". He sent the child to school every morning to go to work, and picked up the child home in the evening, and he went to get off work underground. At the same time, his time in the office seemed to be a little less than the child's school time. After winning the "Scientific Exploration Award" with a prize of 3 million yuan, he smiled jokingly: "Then don't have to work overtime in the laboratory, isn't it?"

The person who refused to roll in the inside said, "I don't think it is necessary to be so desperate. In the final analysis, scientific research still depends on the thoughts." And the problems he studied seemed "very thoughtful."

The scientific issue that Wang Jiawei pays attention to is the age of plants. In the laboratory, the herbal plants have only 8 weeks from germination to seeds to mature. On the other side of the earth, Sweden, the longest -lived European spruce in the world is 9500 years old, witnessing the history of human civilization.

Why do some species died in dusk? Why is it irreversible and cannot return to the old? It is said that "the years urge people to grow old", can it be time for us to grow old?

When the research results came out, he was so embarrassed: "The original answer was so simple that we thought too complicated."

Wang Jiawei's laboratory member

Fang Sheng Fang Death: The secret of the plant "eternal life"

Wang Jiawei likes the name "Scientific Exploration Award". Because the word "exploration" secretly contains some kind of adventure spirit. "Most scientific awards are mainly recognized a person's past work. And this award seems to encourage everyone to do some unprecedented and even some 'risk' research."

At the final judgment meeting of the "Scientific Exploration Award", Wang Jiawei did not report too much about past results. Instead, he talked about what he was doing, and his longing and thoughts on the future research direction. He was very devoted that in an interview with the "Chinese Science News" after the award, he said that compared with the 3 million yuan bonus, this situation of being able to speak with other scientific research and exchanges with other scientific research made him more intoxicating.

Here, he once again talked about his "best in his career" -the irreversible study of plants.

How many times Wang Jiawei is not clear, and observes the process of observing a nanda mustard from germination, stretching to withered in the laboratory -this is the first plant in the world to be completely sequenced in the world. Essence The "concentrated" life cycle of only 8 weeks of Michelon has allowed scientists to glimpse the opportunity in the shortest time.

Earlier research has proven that many creatures, including plants, have a universal age molecular mark -Mir156. The content of MIR156 in the seedlings is very high, and as the plant grows, the content will gradually decrease. If you express MIR156 overdose, the plants will stay in the young state, and the activity of MIR156 will be reduced, which will make the plant precocious.

So what is the content of the MIR156? Exploring this issue, many people have detour around from the beginning. Initially, everyone took it for granted that aging developed over time. Because there are too many factors to be regulated by time, the problem will inevitably become complicated.

In Wang Jiawei's expectations, they will get a tedious chain of mechanism: "Time" regulates A -A -A regulation B — x regulating Mir156 ... The possibility of connection and endlessness made this team sleepy.

Until a collective discussion, someone was light: Will this process have nothing to do with time? This time, they no longer compete with time, but directly placed Arabi -mustard in a low temperature environment, and then found that the growth of this plant stopped. In other words, it is no longer aging.

"This is the answer!" They proved that the content of MIR156 has nothing to do with the absolute age of plants (that is, absolute time), but it will decrease irreversible with each cell division. In other words, life is not passing over time, but in the process of severing cell division, it is inevitable, procedural aging and death.

This discovery made Wang Jiawei instantly think of Hui Zi, the ancient philosopher who liked to fight with Zhuangzi. He has a famous saying in the "ten things": "The Japanese side is Chinese, and the way of life and the death of things -the sun rises to Zhongtian, and it is also the beginning of the west diagonal; for a moment of life falling to the ground, he has already died.

One seed, a fertilized egg, split through cells, grows, develops, mature, and reproduces. But at the same time, each division of the cells is also playing the prelude to death.

"Avenue is simple. When science is the most beautiful, the simplest is the closest to philosophy." Every time Wang Jiawei talked about this study, he was once again shocked by the beauty and sorrow that contained in it.

Since the creatures are "Fang Fang died", why do some plants seem to survive endlessly? The longest -lived European spruce in the world is 9500 years old; the dragon blood tree on the Ghana Islands on North Africa is also 8,000; the life of the fox tail pine in California can reach 4700 years ... Only the carbon 14 method can calculate high life geometry; but they are still "young", and new green blooms in every spring. Wang Jiawei's team continued to ask this question. They found that when many trees arrived in spring, they would breed many new branches from the place near the roots. These branches are "younger", that is, even after the vicissitudes of ancient trees, they can constantly distinguish young branches like new babies.

"This is unimaginable in animals." Wang Jiawei said. They speculate that in those long -lived plants, there are both divided cells that let it show the sequence of spring life and long autumn and winter; there are also some long -term static cells that make them seem to be forgotten by years. Essence

In addition, plants also have other "talents" that make animals unpredictable. Someone had a medical examination on a peach tree in Nyingchi, Tibet, and found that this peach tree lived for more than 400 years, but there were only more than 300 mutations in the body -the mutation rate was extremely low. In contrast, as long as humans live to 4 or 50 years old, genetic mutations will increase significantly, which will bring risks such as cancer.

From this point of view, studying the secrets of plant longevity seems to help extend human life.

"This is theory." Wang Jiawei said. It is so low to study how the mutation rate of plants is so low, and then explore how to reduce the mutation rate of the human body -logical water to the canal. But he also said, "I don't want to do this. Why should I live forever? The earth can accommodate so many humans who are so many 'immortals."

"Well, just live a living. In a limited time, just have a good time." On this issue, Wang Jiawei's scientific outlook and life outlook on life have been in line.

"Useless": the most charming place in science

Sumi Must

So, is Wang Jiawei's scientific research "useful"?

Some work still have the prospects: they draw the single -cell diagram for the rice root system, which has laid the foundation for improving nutrition absorption through artificial custom rooting systems in the future; they are exploring the transformation of annual crops into perennial crops, such as perennial rapeseed, no You need to plant each year to harvest; they try to shorten the child's child's childhood, thereby improving breeding efficiency and harvesting fruits as soon as possible ...

They have also established two perennial model plants -Sumi Mustang and Sugar Mustard, so that more scientific research teams can explore the problems that the annual plants cannot answer.

Small flower candy mustard

But Wang Jiawei didn't like to be asked, "Do you do these use?"

"Fortunately, the leaders of our unit never asked this question, otherwise it would be 'finished." The Molecular Plant Science Innovation Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (former Institute of Botanical Ecological Ecological Ecological Ecology of the Shanghai Institute of Life Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) is both his alma mater and his work now. The place. Here is a free exploration research. "At least I have never carried out the work I want to do because of not enough money or do not support the leadership."

In this free enough space, Wang Jiawei's brain is getting worse. One of the thoughts, he did not even dare to mention the defense meeting of the "Scientific Exploration Award".

"I want to turn the grass into a tree and the tree into a grass. Wow -just like turning magic, the poplar tree becomes 'Yang Cao'!" He appeared on his face with a naughty look. Essence

"I estimate that turning trees into grass is simple, and it is difficult to turn grass into trees." He analyzed it carefully. "Everyone generally believes that in the history of quilt plants, there are wooden plants, and then herbaceous plants. When turning the tree into grass, you need to remove some genes, and turning the grass into a tree, you need to find those genes back, the difficulty is completely different. "

As long as no one asks the "What is the use of this?" Wang Jiawei can be immersed in this charming world and talk endlessly.

If someone asks, he will answer this way: "At the beginning of CRISPR discovery, people did not expect it would become a global general gene editing tool. There was no plan, full of encounters, unexpectedly, this is the free exploration of free exploration. charm."

In Wang Jiawei's view, the current domestic scientific research work is more "decorated" in the house built by others: "When, we Chinese people can start a high -rise building, build the house, and let foreigners come in to decorate. This way More and more situations, our science and technology career really takes off. "

To his gratitude, during the entire defense process, the judges of the "Scientific Exploration Award" did not ask him: "What's the use?"

The judges know that those jobs that seem "useless" at first glance are expanding human cognitive boundaries of the world. No one dares to say that which "useless" research will be amazing in the future era. "Big use".

Refusing the inner roll: "Steak" has its own philosophy

In the era of the "inner volume" of the whole people, Wang Jiawei was almost a alien. Although he continued to meet the difficulties of scientific research, in more, he almost always cared for himself and never embarrassed himself.

When he filled in the college entrance examination volunteer in 1995, his score can be reported to all majors of Shanghai Jiaotong University, but he did not go to the hot major of the year, but chose biology based on his interest. During the postgraduate entrance examination, he decisively applied for the direction of plant science, and the reason was very simple- "dare not kill". Outside the laboratory, Wang Jiawei enjoys a "life" person. After learning that he won the "Scientific Exploration Award", he told his wife as soon as possible that he wanted to "eat better" at night, but his wife had burned well and had to give up. At least on the table, this is just a flat day.

Either a top issue or a prize, he is still the same as usual. He gets off work at 6 o'clock in the evening every day and takes the lead to go home to "live life". It may only be once or twice a month. When you need to attend an online meeting across the time zone, you will stay in the laboratory to work overtime. At home, he has too many things to do: shit to three "cat ancestors", one of which is still a stray cat; every day is responsible for washing dishes, and he is determined to buy dishwasher. Family contribution ".

Wang Jiawei's cat

In addition to "contributing" for the family, he often reads ancient Chinese philosophical classics. For more than 20 years, Wang Jiawei never thought that he only scored 100 points (150 points) in the college entrance examination. In the future, he will read the old village philosophy from the order of the plant. Perhaps reading "Qiwu theory" before going to bed can help a scientist approach the truth, just like observing Arabia in the laboratory.

Wang Jiawei seems to have never cared how much time is in scientific research, neither anxiety nor advertising.

He likes to talk about his vision after he was doing a blog at Max Planck in Germany. There, first -class scientists used to chat and discuss longer than experimenting.

A postdoctoral after doctors in India left him an extremely impressive impression. This person only arrived at the laboratory at 10 am every day. After that, he did not start office immediately. Instead, he was cup coffee. From the east of the laboratory, he slowly shook to the western western side and "chatted" with each scientist. When the coffee is finished, it is time for lunch.

"Good guy, after a morning, I haven't started experiments yet!" In Wang Jiawei at the time, the "old seal" time management was completely unreasonable. Like many diligent East Asian scientists here, Wang Jiawei is working hard for more than ten hours in the laboratory every day, hoping to make more results.

After a period of time, Wang Jiawei found that the article "Old Seal" was very good. Take a closer look. Many of these articles with the shadow of "chatting". He realized that he was too busy, but rarely paused to think about the real important issue.

Now as a mentor, Wang Jiawei is more cherished at the moment when discussing with students. His own office did not have a drinking water machine. Every time he went to the student's lounge to fight water, and who he met, he talked with who to talk about. The inspiration of many electric light fire was born in this small lounge.

"You will realize that great discovery often bursts out at an inadvertent moment."

Wang Jiawei, who is "relaxed", does not often hang the words "love", "ideal", and "pursuing". In contrast, he prefers the vocabulary such as "enjoyment", "inspiration", "beauty".

"What planned in advance is always as beautiful as things that break into your mind."

"I think we need to enjoy more scientific research. We have such good conditions and we should do something that others can't think of or dare to do. Even if it fails, I would rather lose gloriously."

Zhuang Zhou wrote a big tree called "樗" in "Xiaoyaoyou". Hui Zi said that it was "not ink in ink" and "no rules", and Zhuangzi said, why not put this tree species on the vast and boundless wilderness in the wild and boundless wilderness. Then leisurely hovering by the tree, lying down under the tree at ease?

This may be a beautiful coincidence. Zhuangzi and Hui that Wang Jiawei likes to read through a tree to debate the philosophy of "useless use"; and he himself explores life between the life and death of countless plants and trees, between "useless" and "big use", Meaning a secret secret.

Edit | Fangyuan

Capture | Guo Gang

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