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Is the age of life sciences coming?

At Huawei's 19th Global Analyst Conference, which opened yesterday, Based on the thinking basis of "information technology will grow at a rate of more than 100 times in more than ten years", Huawei focused on topics such as "future exploration, industrial innovation, digitalization and low-carbonization", and put forward 10 problems and challenges for the future.

Life sciences issues have arisen many times at this conference, which can be said to be a hero's vision. Life sciences have become the consensus of many people, and many of the industry's top giants are making similar calls, which represents a trend.

This time, Huawei mentioned a total of two basic issues, one of which is related to life sciences, and two of the eight cutting-edge technology challenges are related to life sciences. In fact, the academic community may have reacted earlier.

Today, I will talk to you about the knowledge related to life sciences.

01, life sciences are accelerating

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Taking the Nobel Prize, the most well-known award in academia, as an example, among the three prizes in natural sciences, 100% of the physiology or medicine prizes are awarded to the life sciences, and since 2000, about two-thirds of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry have also been awarded to the life sciences.

If this is a comprehensive personal achievement, then the most direct academic frontier is simply to unmistakably invest energy in the field of life sciences.

Take, for example, nature and science, which are recognized by academia as comprehensive top journals, if you look at their latest papers, almost half of the research is about life sciences.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

As early as 2005, in order to commemorate the 125th anniversary of its founding, the science editorial board gathered the common wisdom of all the top scientists of mankind and proposed 125 important frontier questions, of which life science problems accounted for 46%, if you add 9% of cognitive science, then life science can be said to occupy half of the country.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

These phenomena support the fact that the future is the age of life sciences.

Why were these years raised, not earlier in the early 20th century or earlier?

This is no accident, in fact, it is the inevitable result of technological development.

02, the beginning of life sciences is the inevitable development of human technology

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If you know a good job of the history of science, you may have wondered why Newton discovered the law of gravitation in the 17th century, Lavoisier named oxygen and hydrogen in the 18th century, and it wasn't until the 19th century that Darwin observed and proposed the macroscopic theory of evolution, and it wasn't until the 20th century that humans rediscovered genetics and found human genetic material.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

In fact, an important reason is that people's understanding of science is generally the process of moving from simple systems to complex systems.

On the basis of the high development of mathematics, the understanding of physics through mathematics is an important process of early physics, and it also interprets the essence of the world as atoms from the basis.

On this basis, the molecular world cognition based on the combination of atoms led to the era of chemistry.

What about life sciences? It is a more comprehensive composition on the basis of complex chemical molecules, complex biological reactions between organic molecules, from molecules to cells to individuals more and more diversified and comprehensive complex systems, the exploration of which must be inseparable from the foundation of physics and chemistry and even mathematics, and because of this, the development of life sciences must be lagging behind and conditional. Just as the development of chemistry has given us an understanding of the basic components of life, proteins, nucleic acids, etc., the development of physics has pushed humans to discover the DNA double helix.

By now, we have a wealth of knowledge in mathematics, physics and chemistry, so we have begun to pioneer the life sciences, which will also strive to solve several ultimate problems of human beings:

Who am I? Where am I from? Where am I going?

03, Who am I?

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It is a question of cognition and origin, each of which is a grand proposition.

Cognitive questions can be said to be the crown of the life sciences, how does our brain work? How are our behaviors and psychology regulated? What are the various functions of the brain and the mechanism of disease? Can humans make additional use of the brain, such as brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence? Even, can humans create brains? That is, to know the brain, to protect the brain, to develop the brain, and to create the brain [1].

Is the age of life sciences coming?

The same is true of the question of origin, is life earth itself or extraterrestrial? Was the earliest days of life DNA, RNA, proteins, or something else? What is the path of the evolutionary process of life [2]?

04, Where did I come from?

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There are at least two levels to this problem, the question of origin and the question of medicine.

Origins as above, medical issues, human gender origins and gender determination problems are really caused by XY? What is the development of early human embryos? Can humans be born in an artificial womb? Will the human Y chromosome disappear in the future? Can human egg cells regenerate? 【2】

Is the age of life sciences coming?

05, where do I go?

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This problem is primarily a medical and cognitive science problem.

The former determines when human beings leave, after all, the disease can be said to be a problem that human beings have been facing, from colds and fevers, to cancer, coronary heart disease, etc., as well as the epidemic in recent years, which are the problems that our medicine has been trying to solve, and with the help of medicine, human life expectancy has increased sharply, especially since the 20th century, which has benefited from the joint efforts of countless doctors and scholars. The acceptance and future of death is also another important topic, this content, life sciences are not currently defined, so there are still many people believe that there is another world after death [3].

Is the age of life sciences coming?

Of course, the development of life sciences is not only these lofty topics, but also practical solutions for us humans.

When infectious diseases such as COVID-19 are raging, we need vaccines and drugs to deal with them, and that's what life sciences are trying to solve.

Traditional vaccine production cycle is long, in the face of rapidly changing viruses, how to deal with? The new vaccine is based on the principle of immunity, based on the antigen antibody recognition mechanism, using the core region to design, can be more rapid production, and timely adjustment.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

Traditional drugs have a long research and development cycle, and they are often based on a few drugs, such as the well-known penicillin series

Ampicillin. Oxacillin. Amoxicillin, etc. But in the face of endless creatures, even drug resistance, how to break?

Designing based on the structure of the pathogen to develop exclusive peptide drugs has become a new choice.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

In the past three years, the new crown can be said to be the absolute theme word in the world, basically all kinds of life more or less around the new crown. In dealing with COVID-19, one of the most effective ways humans are finding it is vaccines.

Genetic diseases are irritating, and it is difficult to treat after birth, which is very worrying.

In this case, three-generation IVF technology can avoid genetically defective embryos based on genetic pre-screening strategies.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

For dominant genetic diseases, researchers have been committed to using gene editing technology to solve them, and correct genetic errors directly from the embryonic level through embryonic gene editing [4].

Is the age of life sciences coming?

Even for genetically troubled adults, there are currently frontiers that try to reduce the impact by gene editing and then importing.

And like the situation that human beings face organ damage that eventually leads to the death of the whole body, solving the organ problem has become an important idea today.

Is the age of life sciences coming?

As for the problem of aging and death that plagues countless people, it is a hot spot in today's research, and scientists are looking around for various anti-aging strategies, and even achieving a certain degree of rejuvenation in animals [5].

Is the age of life sciences coming?

It can be said that the essence of the development of life sciences is to serve mankind, not only the deep thinking when we look up at the bright starry sky, but also the down-to-earth solution to the problems of life, old age, illness and death that mankind is facing now. Therefore, when science and technology have developed to today, it is also time for life sciences to start. Huawei's conference can be said to be the same as what the heroes see, representing the attention and cognition of the world's top wisdom, whether it is academics or the industry.

Because in the past, there was no mathematical community and the joint efforts of people in the industry, which laid the foundation for the beginning of life sciences, and we began to have the ability to explore the more important existence of living organisms to truly return technology to human beings themselves.

The future belongs to the life sciences, which is already a very obvious path, and every small step we take today is a big step for the future.

1 Elam J S , Essen D V . Human Connectome Project[J]. Springer New York, 2015.

2 Fischman, J. Reprieve for men: Y chromosome is not vanishing. Nature (2014). doi.org/10.1038/nature.

3 Mango S E . Generations of longevity[J]. Nature, 2011, 479(7373):p.302-303.

4 Koch L . Base editing takes a shot at disease in non-human primates[J]. Nature Reviews Genetics, 2021.

5 Loffredo F S, Steinhauser M L, Jay S M, et al. Growth differentiation factor 11 is a circulating factor that reverses age-related cardiac hypertrophy[J]. Cell, 2013, 153(4): 828-839.

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