International Cooperation | SIAS successfully co-hosted the
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2021-12-20 14:31
On October 31st, the 4th World Laureates Forum (WLF) was held. Shanghai Institute for Advanced Study of Zhejiang University (SIAS) collaborated with the World Laureates Association (WLA) to mutually host a sub-forum as part of the WLF. The sub-forum was split into 2 sessions, the first part consisted of a series of presentations brought by keynote speakers (Opinion Summary), and the second part was a panel discussion. Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt and elected member of Chinese Academy of Sciences Xiaofeng Cao attended the forum.
During the sub-forum, we centered on discussing the topic of ‘the new paradigm for interdisciplinary research for life science’. We were thrilled to have invited some of the most well-known leading scientists across the globe to present their newest findings.
Panelists included: Prof. Alfred AHO, winner of 2020 Turing Award Prof. Bruce ALBERTS, winner of 2016 Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science Prof. Jens GUNDLACH, winner of 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Prof. James ROTHMAN, winner of 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Prof. Efim ZELMANOV, winner of 1994 Fields Medal Prof. Jianpeng MA, fellow of American Physical Society Prof. Zenghui ZHANG,RSC Fellow Prof.Ruhong ZHou, AAAS Fellow
The forum was moderated by Dr Ruhong Zhou, who is a Qiushi Chair Professor of Physics and Biology, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Fellow of the American Physical Society. Zhou also serves as the Dean of SIAS. He said that in the past ten years, the accelerated development of new interdisciplinary research has had a significant impact on the world, especially in the field of life sciences, along with synthetic biology, nanobiology, bioinformatics, computational biology, With the continuous rise of disciplines such as tissue engineering, as well as the rapid development of computing power, automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, interdisciplinary disciplines are changing the research paradigm and industry outlook in the field of life sciences. Taking nanobiology as an example, this emerging field is characterized by the organic combination of physics, materials science, synthetic organic chemistry, engineering, and biology. As a new discipline, it may have the ability to completely change life sciences. He believes that biological research is becoming quantitative-driven, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2013) was a milestone in the development of biological research from qualitative to quantitative.
Prof. Ruhong Zhou at the opening remark
Professor Bruce Alberts is a well-known cell biologist. He published university textbooks 43 years ago. In the past 5-6 years, he has continuously updated the textbooks, especially in mathematics and calculations. He believes that organisms are very complex, but through computational biology and through in-depth research, a closed loop of feedback is formed. Quantitative methods can better explain the complexity of life. For instance, with the application and development of computational science, it has helped us understand the extremely complex brain neurons. A typical example is to understand the human brain by modeling the brain of fruit flies. Of course, the cooperation of scientists from various countries is needed to achieve breakthroughs in computational biology as soon as possible.
Professor Alfred Aho is a Canadian computer scientist with outstanding achievements in programming languages and related algorithms. He is also known for compiling textbooks on computer programming technology and science. He believes that solving problems through computational thinking and computational methods will play an important role in many disciplines. To elaborate, the rapid development of computer science and IT has been applied to computational biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and other fields. The two pillars of computational thinking are abstraction and algorithm. Abstraction must be realized through mathematical models and word meanings. Algorithms are like a recipe, an arrangement of a series of behaviors. As computing power continues to rise, it will be expected to decipher the wisdom and consciousness of human beings.
Professor Alfred Aho gave a speech
Professor Jens Gundlach is a professor of physics at the University of Washington. His original research field was gravitational physics. Later, he turned his research direction to biophysics, mainly testing DNA nanopores. At the beginning, he encountered difficulties in the experiment, but as he combined physics and biology, he achieved breakthrough results and won the 2021 Basic Physics Breakthrough Award. Professor Gundlach believes that interdisciplinary scientific research is very interesting, from physics to biology, which has brought him a lot of inspiration.
Professor Jens Gundlach gave a speech
Professor Efim Zelmanov is a chair professor at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the most authoritative scholars in the world of algebra today. He pointed out that mathematical methods are increasingly being applied to the fields of life sciences, statistics and mathematics. He also believes that the development of mathematics itself can be promoted by disciplines such as life sciences, cryptography, and consumer sentiment analysis. He said that if physics promoted the great development of mathematics in the 17th and 18th centuries, the 21st century is the century in which life sciences would promote the great development of mathematics.
Professor James Rothman comes from Yale University and has been involved in physics, medicine, chemistry, cell biology and other disciplines. He is a pioneer and representative figure of interdisciplinary. As the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, he believes that it is not difficult to conduct interdisciplinary research. As long as everyone has a clear goal and researchers from different disciplines work together to strengthen collaborative research, breakthroughs can be made in practice
Professor James Rothman gave a speech
Professor Jianpeng Ma joined Fudan University as a core member of the Shanghai Top Talent Recruitment Program in 2018. Together with Professor Michael Levitt, he founded Fudan University's Multiscale Research Institute for Complex Systems (MRICS) and served as the dean. His research field is biology. Physics, Computational Biology and Structural Biology. He believes that in today's biology, we are at the best time to study the dynamic dimension of proteins. The structure can be determined through experiments or computer predictions, but the dynamic properties can only be achieved through computer simulations..
Professor Jianpeng Ma gave a speech
Professor Zenghui Zhang is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research focuses on exploring and applying new algorithms to conduct biological system research more effectively. He believes that from a computational perspective, there are currently two main research approaches: one is the theoretical calculation methods based on physical models, which can provide physical mechanisms for biological problems; The other is based on big data and uses machine learning. During the discussion, He introduced the use of machine learning to improve the accuracy of the structure prediction of protein-ligand complexes and the use of physical model methods to study the dynamics of the binding of new coronaviruses to human cell receptors mechanism.
In the roundtable discussion, scientists agreed that new ideas from various disciplines, and the convergence of new technologies and biology are forging the rapid development of life Sciences. We are reaching the stage where traditional biology is transitioning into quantitative biology.
Dean of SIAS Professor Zhou with Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt
This forum attracted over 200 audience attending through off-line and was featured by multiple mainstream media platforms.
