"I just want to be a scientist!" In the late 1970s, scientists such as Qian Xuesen and Hua Luogeng were idols of many primary and secondary school students, and Shi Jianlin, the "post-60s generation", was no exception.
Although materially poor in that era, the little boy who concentrated on the classroom kept his dream and eventually became a materials chemist. What is even more amazing is that he actually became a "pharmacist" one day and embarked on the long road of finding an antidote for tumor patients.
Shi Jianlin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, photographed by Wang Wenjuan of the People's Network
Speaking of cancer, a very important treatment is chemotherapy, but chemotherapy drugs generally have strong toxic side effects, and some patients may not be able to tolerate it. "Can you not use such a toxic drug?" It is such a question that makes Shi Jianlin delve into it for nearly two decades, put forward the concept of "nano-catalytic medicine", and open up a new way for the non-toxic and precise treatment of major diseases such as tumors in the future.
"Patriotism is the duty of a scientist"
"In the 1960s and 1970s, the rural areas were extremely poor and their lives were very poor, but I was one of the few students in the class who worked hard and got good grades." Shi Jianlin felt that only by redoubling his hard work could he not disappoint his family, and after two years of hard study in high school, he was admitted to the university as he wished.
"I was a college student in 1979, and in the environment at that time, everyone was very interested in knowledge and scientific research. I was very impressed, there was a reportage about Chen Jingrun, "Goldbach's Conjecture", I was very shocked, and I wanted to do scientific research at that time. That year, Shi Jianlin enrolled in the Inorganic Materials Major of Nanjing Institute of Chemical Technology (now Nanjing University of Technology).
38 years ago, after graduating from the undergraduate, Shi Jianlin successfully obtained a graduate student at the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and during his doctoral studies, he followed Academician Yan Dongsheng, the founder of inorganic materials science in China, and obtained a doctorate in 1989.
In the 1990s, Mr. Yan was 80 years old and still led the team in the front line to deploy a new direction of basic research. When he was over 90 years old, he was still carrying out research and international cooperation on intraocular lenses.
"Teacher Yan really lives to be old, to be old, to contribute to old age, and to contribute a lifetime to the development of science." Speaking of the teacher, Shi Jianlin was very emotional.
What Academician Yan Dongsheng brought to Shi Jianlin was actually not just academic guidance.
"Mr. Yan, as a scientist of the older generation who is highly respected in our country, returned to China to work at the beginning of the founding of New China, and there are many places worth learning from." Shi Jianlin said, "The first is his feelings of family and country, and I think patriotism is the duty of a scientist." Anyone, even if you are an academically accomplished scientist, cannot do without your homeland. ”
In 1993, Shi Jianlin went to the PML laboratory of the Max Planck Institute of Metal Research in Germany as a visiting scholar.
Jianlin Shi is the director of the State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Ultrastructure. Images courtesy of respondents
The following year, Shi Jianlin served as a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Ultrastructure, which began his research career in the chemistry of inorganic materials.
"Making materials work for the benefit of humanity"
How can materials science intervene in biomedicine? Why was Shi Jianlin's team able to propose a new strategy of "nano-catalytic tumor therapy"? What exactly led him to determine this research direction?
As early as 1998, Shi Jianlin began to contact inorganic nanomaterials, and was committed to the synthesis, heterogeneous catalytic performance and environmental application of mesoporous materials and mesoporous main-guest composites.
The charm of scientific research is to find new research fields and directions, and continue to deepen.
"Make materials work for the benefit of humanity!" It is Shi Jianlin's goal all along. Since 2003, Shi Jianlin has expanded his research on mesoporous nanocomposites into the field of life and health.
Initial research focused on the application of nanomaterials to drug delivery research. After several years of efforts, Shi Jianlin's scientific research team finally built the first drug delivery system based on mesoporous nanoparticle drug carrier nuclei, with an efficiency of 98.6% to inhibit tumor growth; established a molecular switch in the pore channel, taking the lead in realizing the controlled release of drug light control such as infrared light excitation in the world; through the multi-functional design of materials, the development of tumor multi-mode collaborative therapy and diagnostic treatment integration program.
Shi Jianlin in the laboratory. Images courtesy of respondents
"Our scientific and technological research and exploration of the future world should focus on opening up new interdisciplinary directions, such as intersecting materials with life sciences and medicine." Now nanomedicine plays a certain role in drug transportation and other aspects, but it has not left the use of traditional highly toxic chemotherapy drugs. We must combine nanotechnology, chemistry and medicine, and achieve non-toxic or low-toxic treatment of diseases such as tumors through interdisciplinary, so as to make more contributions to human health. This is a very meaningful thing! Shi Jianlin said.
However, research to achieve this goal has been difficult. Shi Jianlin, who is not from a medical class, while learning biological and medical knowledge, considers how to apply nanotechnology and chemical knowledge more closely to the treatment of malignant tumors, and fundamentally achieve the purpose of non-toxic or low-toxic treatment.
Finally, three years ago, Shi Jianlin's team proposed a new strategy of "nano-catalytic tumor therapy" internationally, further expanding this concept to a more universal "nano-catalytic medicine" for the treatment of a variety of diseases. "Taking tumor treatment as an example, after we use non-toxic materials to enter the tumor, we change from non-toxic to toxic through a catalytic reaction, and remain non-toxic when entering normal tissue." Shi Jianlin said: "In this way, we can achieve specific treatment of tumors and fundamentally solve the problem of toxic side effects of drugs." ”
In 2019, Shi Jianlin was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Now, Shi Jianlin especially cherishes every minute and every second of scientific research time. "All my energy now is on nanocatalytic medicine, although the road is very long, but I hope that the treatment plan of nanocatalytic medicine can be brought into the clinical stage as soon as possible, and bring real gospel to cancer patients." Because of the long-term low back pain, in the office, Shi Jianlin installed a lifting frame for the computer, and when the waist hurt, he stood and wrote.
"Let more young people stand out, how can I not be in a hurry"
"Mr. Yan was very serious about the work of the students, he was very old at the time, and as a great scientist, he was careful to revise our articles word by word." And these are affecting Shi Jianlin, even if the task is relatively heavy now, with more students, as a tutor, he will also spend a lot of time and energy, carefully revising the student paper until he is satisfied.
"The key to making more young people stand out in a scientific and technological power, in the face of international competition, how can I not be in a hurry?" For more than 30 years, Shi Jianlin has spared no effort to cultivate young talents and try his best to strive for a good scientific research environment for them.
In Shi Jianlin's view, in addition to the construction of a scientific research platform, a tutor should manage the "two ends", on the one hand, the research direction (topic selection), on the other hand, the "export" (papers, data, etc.), the middle should be to let students explore, play and cultivate their ability to innovate. "The most important thing for students is to cultivate students' ability to independently engage in scientific research." Shi Jianlin believes that to see whether the tutor is successful in cultivating students, it depends on whether the students can be independent in scientific research work after graduation, whether they can open their own projects, take students by themselves, and then make achievements in a certain field.
Speaking of students, Shi Jianlin's eyes lit up, maybe Teacher Yan Dongsheng looked at his students like this!
"Academician Shi has made a high disciple, and the scientific research results of individual doctoral students under his disciples have been very influential." He Tianhou, personnel office of the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, told reporters.
"Successful students are basically similar." Shi Jianlin said: "They all have three conditions: one is the ambition to serve the country through scientific research, the second is the character of immersing in research and having no distractions, and the third is talent and diligence. At the same time, young scholars with these conditions are likely to become the top scientists in the future, and hope that more students will become the pillars of the academic community. ”
Source: People's Daily News