In February this year, Wang Li, chief engineer of Moutai Group, was selected as a candidate for 2021 academicians, causing widespread controversy, and people were given the title of "Baijiu Academician"
Wang Li
In contrast, Professor Tsinghua Goddess was not elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017, and then went to Princeton University as a tenured professor, becoming an academician of the two academies of the United States. After refusing generous treatment and resolutely returning to Tsinghua, why did she choose to go to the United States again after ten years? Why did Mr. Yang Zhenning say that her departure was strange? Today's big guy log will take you to know this goddess professor who fled the United States, Yan Ning. New friends can click a wave of attention, do not miss the wonderful content in the future.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > 30-year-old Tsinghua Goddess Professor</h1>
It is very one-sided to evaluate a person from one thing alone, not to mention that most people do not know Yan Ning, and a large part of the remaining small group of people also know her because Yan Ning ran away from the United States, if we want to evaluate her from an objective point of view, perhaps we should first understand her life experience.
Yan Ning, a native of Zhangqiu, Shandong, was born in 1977 and is the pearl in the palm of a family. She has not been a well-behaved girl in the traditional sense since she was a child, and she was a lively and active tomboy as a child. At that time, there was no network, Yan Ning and her partners ran around in the field, up and down the river, catching cicadas and touching fish, her parents broke their hearts for this, like most rural children at that time, Yan Ning grew up in the embrace of nature, which may be one of the reasons why she can become a big man in biology.
Yan Ning
Later, Yan Ning came to Beijing with her parents and said goodbye to rural life, but the habits she developed in the countryside were still difficult to change, and she still loved to play. It's just that she is also very intelligent, the homework assigned by the school can be completed in the classroom, and when she returns home to face the questioning of her parents, Xiao Yanning will always hold her head up straight, and say with some pride: I finished writing at school.
There was still no fun in the countryside in the city, she felt like she was confined to a cage, and in desperation, the little clever ghost Yan Ning quickly found a new interest. It was a fortuitous coincidence that she saw the microscopic biological world from under the school microscope, and Yan Ning was as happy as if she had discovered a new continent, she did not expect that there was such a wonderful scene in the colorful world in her eyes.
The microscopic world that she glimpsed from the microscope may have been the enlightenment of Yan Ning's microscopic biological path, but limited to the conditions at that time, this curiosity was still temporarily buried in her heart, and she gradually became fascinated with reading, from ancient poetry to modern poetry, from martial arts to Zhiwei, she was also quite obsessed with the world in words, when she was a well-known "female scholar" in the class.
When she was assigned to high school, she listened to the advice of her parents and teachers and chose science, and it was because of her choice that there was one less female scholar and more female scientist in the world.
In the days when she was in high school, Yan Ning became the treasure in the hands of the teacher, she was active in her thinking, her understanding was very strong, and she was diligent and hardworking after understanding things, and her grades have always been among the best. In 1996, Yan Ning took the college entrance examination, there was a small episode when choosing a major, when her parents hoped that her daughter would study medicine and become a doctor in the future, Yan Ning refused, she said that she could not bear to dissect small animals, when her family asked her what she wanted to learn, Yan Ning recalled her excitement of observing the world through the microscope for the first time, despite her family's opposition, she insisted on applying for the structural biology major, and finally she entered the biology department of Tsinghua University as she wished and began her college career.
After all, Tsinghua is the highest institution in the country, where Yan Ning feels the pressure she has not encountered since entering her learning career, and at the beginning her grades are not excellent, and she can only be regarded as a middle student in the class. This made Yan Ning suddenly have the idea of competing, from childhood to adulthood, there was no one who could make her willingly admit defeat, she began to work her studies, whether it was after class or vacation, as long as it was time that could be used, Yan Ning was not willing to let go.
Her natural talent quickly paid off, and after four years of college, her grades were always at the top of the department, and in her junior year, she was entered by structural biologist Rao Zihe and Xiangzhong and entered his laboratory.
When he graduated, Yan Ning met Bole Shi Yigong, an alumnus of Yan Ning, who graduated from Tsinghua University in 1989 and later received his doctorate in the United States. He has many titles, Princeton University Professor, Tsinghua Professor, in 2013 was elected to the United States academicians of the Two Academies, and was also elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he has been committed to the cultivation of outstanding scientific research talents, Yan Ning is one of his most proud disciples.
Shi Yigong
At that time, Shi Yigong was working at Princeton University, came to Tsinghua to give a speech, and also publicized the admission brochure of Princeton University. Shi Yigong's words awakened Yan Ning, and she volunteered to write a letter of recommendation to Shi Yigong, hoping to get the opportunity to study at Princeton University.
As a Tsinghua jiaozi, Yan Ning soon received an acceptance letter from Princeton University, becoming one of the first Batch of Chinese graduate students at the university.
After coming to Princeton University, Shi Yigong became her mentor, and at the very beginning, Shi Yigong told Yan Ning that research was a very boring and lonely job, and Yan Ning did not think so, saying that he could do it.
Studying in Princeton was the hardest part of Yan Ning's academic career, and she often maintained a high-intensity research of 13 hours a day for a project, and sometimes the energy in her heart came up, and she would even do experiments all night, sometimes sleeping on the desk in the laboratory.
In 2003, the effort finally came to harvest, her research results were transformed into papers, which were recognized by the academic community, and in 2004, she successfully obtained a doctorate, it is worth noting that in Princeton at that time, it generally took 7 years to get a doctorate, while Yan Ning only took four years.
Yan Ning, who completed her doctoral studies, did not stop here, research is indeed very tiring, but she never felt that the process was torturous, but she felt that discovering a new world from unknown territory was the most exciting thing. Driven by this belief, Yan Ning began her postdoctoral research career in the Department of Molecular Biology of Princeton University, and in 2007, she gave up the generous price tag offered by all parties in the United States, accepted the invitation of Zhao Nanming, director of the Biology Department of Tsinghua University, and chose to return to Tsinghua University to become a professor and contribute to the scientific research cause of the motherland, when she was only 30 years old.
Zhao Nanming, Head of the Department of Biology at Tsinghua University
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="20" > to overcome academic problems</h1>
After arriving at Tsinghua University, Yan Ning became a goddess-level professor recognized by Tsinghua students, the long-term research career did not erase the brilliance and enthusiasm in her eyes, she was intoxicated with research, she had a kind of purity that did not eat human fireworks, in the ten years of Tsinghua, as a professor, she trained 7 doctoral students, as a researcher, she still loves her own research room.
Yan Ning has been facing difficulties since she was a child and working hard, and this time is no exception, she has set her sights on one of the most difficult areas of structural biology - membrane proteins.
Membrane proteins are embedded in the cell membrane, and once they leave the phospholipid bilayer, they are easily deformed and it is difficult to obtain high-quality crystals, so the structural analysis of membrane proteins is a recognized problem in the academic community.
One of the most important classes of membrane proteins is glucose-functioning proteins, or GLUTs, which are widely present in human cells and play a key role in maintaining blood glucose concentrations and blood supply to the brain.
Although the gene sequence of GLUT1 has been identified internationally, its three-dimensional structure and operation mechanism have always been an unsolved mystery in the field of structural biology, and there has been no substantial progress in the past fifty years. Yan Ning was quite interested in this, with a group of young people with an average age of less than 30 years old began to tackle the problem, seven years later, that is, in 2014, the team led by Yan Ning analyzed the three-dimensional crystal structure of GLUT1 for the first time in the world, solving the problem that plagued world scientists for 50 years, and in the following years, she went farther and farther on the research path of membrane proteins and achieved fruitful results.
She was selected as one of the ten Chinese science stars by Nature magazine, and successively won the first International Young Scientist Award of HHMI in the United States, the "Young Scientist" Award of the International Protein Society, etc. In China, the awards won include Scientific and Technological Innovation Figures, the 18th and 27th Chinese Youth May Fourth Medals, etc.
Before 2017, she published 19 papers in the world's top academic journals "Nature", "Science" and "Cell", two of which were also highlighted by the American "Science" magazine "Annual Top Ten Scientific Advances".
In addition to obsessing with scientific research, Yan Ning also loves life, out of the laboratory she and contemporary women are no different, like food, like to chase dramas, like all the new things that can make her happy in it, in 2017, dressed up fashionable Yan Ning in CCTV "open talk" debut, in a short period of time to absorb countless powder, beautiful face, excellent academic achievements, positive attitude to life, let her be very popular.
However, it is such a researcher who chose to return to the United States in 2017 as a tenured professor at Princeton University.
In an interview, a reporter asked her: "What sparked your interest in scientific research?" Yan Ning said that she has been completely attracted to scientific research since she was in college, and she enjoys flexible working hours and prefers to choose research topics freely, not to mention the huge temptation of "the world's first discovery". From this answer, it is not difficult to see that Yan Ning, who is now in her forties, is still full of curiosity about the unknown territory like when she was a child, and her mind is full of imagination and pioneering vitality and courage.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="31" > lost the election of academicians and fled the United States</h1>
For a time, there was a lot of noise on the Internet, some people thought that Yan Ning betrayed the motherland, some people thought that Yan Ning ran away in order to pursue a better research environment, and some people spread rumors that Yan Ning was elected as an academician three times and then ran away in a negative mood.
So what are the facts?
Yan Ning once implicitly replied that she went to the United States to seek new breakthroughs, and after arriving in the United States, she has published many papers in international journals and achieved huge scientific research results.
In fact, from Yan Ning's experience, we can also see that she is a pure scientific researcher, going to the United States is not because of the so-called unpatriotic, but simply climbing the academic peak, compared with the domestic, the Environment in the United States seems to be more favorable, there are cutting-edge scientific instruments, there are like-minded scholars, such a choice does not seem to be wrong.
Mr. Yang Zhenning commented on Yan Ning's departure from the United States that this matter is somewhat strange, and the specific reasons have not been elaborated, but we may be able to get some judgments from some clues.
Yang Zhenning
As we mentioned earlier, Yan Ning likes to chase dramas, and she is personally a hardcore supporter of Zhu Yilong, who often shares her experiences and feelings on Weibo and releases the pressure she encounters in the research process. In 2018, Professor Yan Ning, who was far away in the United States, was on the hot search, not because of scientific research results, but because of fans of domestic stars.
At the beginning, Professor Yan Ning's words on Weibo attracted these fans to sit on the number, the comment area was occupied, and the Internet was full of rumors, after which Yan Ning also responded specifically to this matter, and the attitude was not humble.
Coincidentally, when "Academician Moutai" entered the candidate list of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in February, the rumor that Professor Yan Ning had lost the academician three times once again caused widespread spread on the Internet, Yan Ning said on Weibo:
I have never been elected three times, don't be so insulting, in 19 years and 21 years there were several academicians who wanted to nominate me to become an academician based on my previous work in China, but I politely refused, and the reason is that I don't want to be the talking point of others after dinner, after all, I don't work in The country, the name will be scolded by half of the people in the list, and if I can't be selected, I will be used as a tool to scold people, I just want to engage in scientific research happily, don't cue.
Many people put the unpatriotic hat on Yan Ning's head without a brain, in fact, compared with the exodus itself, perhaps the reason for Yan Ning's exodus is more important, where is the difference in our scientific research environment? Is it academic atmosphere or hardware facilities? Did the field of public opinion influence scholars, or did Vanity Fair waste scientific research? In this era of entertainment to death, how many researchers like Yan Ning are there? Is the exodus of a large number of researchers unpatriotic or forced by the Chinese people? This is all a problem that needs to be considered, China's scientific research environment needs to be improved This is a fact, patriotism is not only one way, I believe that Professor Yan Ning will eventually choose to return to China, just like Mr. Yang Zhenning.
This issue is here, welcome to the audience lords leave comments, like this issue of friends please like more like forwarding, more character stories, all in the big guy log, the next issue we do not see or disperse.
Friends of the period please like and forward more, more character stories, all in the big guy log, the next issue we do not see or scatter.