Hengyu West Wind comes from the Au Fei Temple
量子位 | 公众号 QbitAI
A 94-year-old male doctoral supervisor became the latest winner of the Young Orange Award for solving the puzzle of female reproductive health and reducing birth errors, and won millions of free use of scientific research grants.
His name is Su Jun, and he is now a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Biological Sciences and an assistant professor at Tsinghua University.
Surrounded by an office full of anime figurines and surroundings, Su Junhe and his team are deeply engaged in one field: female reproduction and early embryonic development.
In more detail, one of the directions that the research group led by Su Jun is now exploring is the causes of female infertility and providing a new direction for its prevention and treatment.
These results can be used to improve existing medically assisted reproductive technologies, which are commonly referred to as "in vitro fertilization".
It is no longer the time to associate scientists, researchers, and stereotypes such as "old-fashioned" and "boring".
But looking at Su Jun's bleached blonde-dyed blond-brown hair, more and more curiosity and desire to explore kept coming out of our hearts like bubbles after boiling water.
Su Jun, what kind of researcher is he?
Perform microscopic imaging work
To put it simply, Su Jun's main work is to use microscopic imaging technology to study female reproduction and early embryonic development.
His research includes two groundbreaking findings, both published in the journal Science:
- It was discovered that mammalian oocytes assembled a chromosome separation machine using liquid-liquid phase separation.
- Unraveling the molecular mechanism of chromosomal abnormalities that often occur in human oocytes.
Broadly speaking, the egg develops from the oocyte, in which half of the chromosomes are lost through the process of meiosis.
In the process of chromosome separation, cells need to temporarily form a structure called a spindle. The spindle is made up of a cytoskeleton and is generally assembled by centrosomes in non-germ cells.
However, mammalian oocytes do not have centrosomes.
That...... How do you assemble the spindle?
In the first work, Su Jun and his team found that mammalian oocytes still express multiple centrosome proteins without centrosomes.
During meiosis, these centrosome proteins are separated by the liquid-liquid phase, which is simply like oil-water separation, forming a liquid spindle domain in the cytoplasm.
The liquid spindle domain accommodates and mobilizes regulators near the spindle, promoting cytoskeletal assembly in the absence of centrosomes.
After the end of this study, Su Jun and his team continued to explore in depth in the direction of female reproduction.
In 2022, they found that human oocytes often assemble unstable spindles, resulting in an abnormal number of chromosomes, which is not the case in other mammals.
Then, using genetic screening, the team finally identified a motor protein called KIFC1 that regulates the stability of the oocyte spindle.
KIFC1 protein is highly expressed in oocytes of different mammals, such as mouse, bovine and porcine, but only human oocytes lack KIFC1.
Therefore, they purified and injected exogenous KIFC1 protein into human oocytes.
By supplementing with KIFC1 protein, the team successfully improved the accuracy of meiosis in human oocytes and reduced the risk of chromosomal abnormalities, making it possible to prevent and treat chromosomal abnormalities in eggs for the first time.
Su Jun said that through this research, he hopes to improve the quality of clinical women's eggs and "reduce the amount of money and pain women spend during the assisted reproduction cycle."
Now, as the PI of the Beijing Institute of Biological Sciences, Su Jun has established cooperation with different reproductive centers in China as the head of the research group.
As far as we know, the human eggs and embryos used for the experiment came from different hospitals across the country, were transported in a frozen state, and then thawed in his laboratory in Beijing.
Speaking of which, the freezing and thawing of eggs and embryos is a simple technical task that sounds like a simple step, but is actually extremely complex.
Eggs and embryos are fragile and contain a lot of water, and if they are frozen even a little slower, ice crystals can form and puncture the cell structure.
During the thawing process, the cells are prone to swelling, and the cells will break down at the slightest mistake.
However, successful thawing of cells is not something that can be solved by "practice makes perfect".
The eggs and embryos of each species are not small, and the difficulty of handling is also different, so the operator must know the sample thoroughly enough to get started.
And, because human embryo samples are precious, each step requires extreme care.
In the current research group, most of the time this operation process is handled by Su Jun himself to avoid losses - including placing the cells on the light sheet microscope for observation and shooting after thawing, involving complex operations such as microinjection and live cell staining, which are also done by Su Jun himself.
However, since most of the experimental time of the research group depends on the condition of the cells, the laboratory is completely flexible.
In Su Jun's words, it is not stipulated that students will commute to and from work every day, as long as the work is completed and the experiment is completed, "it is okay not to come in the morning".
Although, he himself usually commutes to work from 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening, but it is very regular.
Male researcher who studies female reproductive health
After chatting about Su Jun's work, we turned the spotlight back on him.
Formally introduced, Su Jun is currently a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Biological Sciences and an assistant professor at Tsinghua University, with a total of 9 people in the research group, 5 of whom are direct doctoral students under his leadership.
If you summarize himself in his own words, he is "a 94-year-old INTJ doctoral supervisor".
He grew up in Hong Kong, graduated from the University of Chinese in 2016 and went to the University of Göttingen in Germany to pursue a PhD in Biology and Complex Systems Physics, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Science.
Looking back, Su Jun really realized that "female reproductive health" was a topic of great significance, and decided to devote himself to research during his doctoral studies in Germany.
But in essence, the seeds of the influence of family factors have long been planted:
Su Jun's mother gave birth to this son after the age of 40, and the family has always felt fortunate that Su Jun was able to grow up healthy - because of the many risks associated with advanced maternal age, unfortunately, the birth of a fetus with advanced maternal age is more likely to have a genetic disease, such as Down syndrome.
Therefore, Su Jun, who studied Xi biology, began to pay attention to the quality of egg cells in the process of female reproduction very early.
Another personal factor is that in the past ten years of scientific research, undergraduate supervisors, doctoral and postdoctoral supervisors are all women, "they are the ferrymen of many important moments in my career." ”
In Su Jun's view, women's contributions to scientific research and family deserve more attention from society, including hot topics to improve women's health.
Soon after devoting himself to research in this field, Su Jun made two observations:
First of all, the situation is a little more dire than the average person thinks.
Between 20% and 40% of the chromosome numbers of human eggs collected in the clinic are abnormal. In addition, up to 50% of eggs do not develop to the preimplantation stage after fertilization.
Secondly, many of the people who seek assisted reproductive treatment in the reproductive center are young people.
According to a previous survey by Peking University, the infertility rate in China has increased from 3% to 18% from 2007 to 2020.
In the past, everyone may think that it was mainly older couples who went to reproductive centers, but whether it is because of food or environment, the group of people who want to have children and choose medical help is getting younger and younger.
Therefore, instead of developing in precision medicine, Su Jun hopes to develop a broad-spectrum method that is suitable for different genetic backgrounds to improve female reproductive ability.
He believes that the research he is promoting has great potential to be translated into fertility centers to improve the efficiency and outcomes of assisted reproduction in humans and enhance female reproductive capacity.
But at the same time, he also laughed that now that female consciousness is rising, and the proportion of celibacy and Dink in society is increasing, such an environmental background is not contrary to what he does:
Whether or not to have a child is a personal choice, and there is no right or wrong choice.
I'm not trying to change the mindset of people who don't want children, I just want to help women who "want to have children but can't".
When it comes to future goals, Su Jun said that in addition to continuing to deepen the current research and solving the problem of early embryonic development, he also wants to do more popular science content.
"It's not easy to talk about reproduction and sexuality. Su Jun added, "I hope that through popular science, everyone can have a more basic and correct understanding." ”
The whole body marks a sense of contrast
If "male researchers who study women's reproductive health" is a big label for Su Jun - or the kind full of contrasts, you probably wouldn't expect that there are many similar tags on this person.
For example, from his study path:
Su Jun was born in Hong Kong, China, with a bachelor's degree in Hong Kong Chinese and a postdoctoral degree in Germany, but finally chose to return to China and take root in Beijing.
This decision was made for several reasons:
The first is the support given to him by the Beijing Institute of Biological Sciences. After learning that Su Jun wanted to switch to early human embryonic development after returning to China, the leader of the institute promised to purchase a light sheet microscope for the research group after he joined the company, and promised to fulfill it as scheduled.
This microscope, which can occupy a 10-square-meter room with a value of 8 million yuan, is the first in the world to be successfully put into operation except for the demo prototype in Switzerland.
Su Jun explained that the microscope compresses the laser light like two pieces of paper and then scans the living human embryo layer by layer.
This technique scans extremely fast and excites only a small area of the entire embryo during the scanning process, with minimal phototoxicity and photobleaching, ensuring that the embryo can develop properly during the photographic process.
△配图由GPT-4 AI生成
Putting aside the instrument, Su Jun chose to return to China for research, and always felt that he still wanted to "go home".
I would like to conduct research that interests me in my own country.
Moreover, driven by the national policy, the domestic scientific research investment has been increasing and the clinical resources are abundant, which are very conducive to his long-term in-depth research.
This is not over, Su Jun's contrast is also his profession and character.
The Beijing Institute of Biological Sciences has gathered a large number of young scientists and researchers, and most of the researchers in this group are around 37 or 8 years old, and Su Jun is the youngest one.
In other words, Su Jun, 29 years old this year, is the youngest PI of the Beisheng Institute.
To be honest, this age is about the same as the students in his current group (which may be the reason why he likes students to call him Nick instead of "boss").
The point is that although he is still a doctoral supervisor in his rigorous research, his interests are still similar to those of most young people:
Like anime, in his office, you can see figures and dolls everywhere.
likes to chase dramas, my favorite is idol dramas, there are no good dramas to chase recently, so I am watching the reality show "Heartwarming Offer".
In addition to the above two points, in fact, Su Jun has the most conspicuous and externalized contrast, that is, his hair color has changed since he was two months younger.
When he went to school, Su Jun said that he was still very "well-behaved", never dyed his hair, and at most permed a style.
After becoming a doctoral supervisor, the door to some magical worlds was opened by him, and this person fell madly in love with hair dyeing. Anyone who has met Su Jun in recent months can find that every time they meet, Su Jun has a hair of different colors, and he will also grab a style with hairspray.
We asked me for verification, and after trying platinum and grandma gray, we are ready to dye pink next time.
Even the Little Red Book number of his thousands of followers has a name related to hair color.
For this point, Su Junzhi didn't have any twists:
Colleagues and students don't think I'm immature because I bleached my hair, but more about my professional ability.
I still want to be more lively, and the students will be more relaxed.
"Relaxation" seems to be an important part of Su Jun's WLB, even if he makes a seven-day work plan for himself a week, he will take half a day out to relax.
And the relaxation path is usually the same thing, the visit, the shop.
These daily lives will be unreservedly popped by him on the circle of friends and Xiaohongshu, which is about part of his hobbies in addition to research.
△ The picture is from his Xiaohongshu account
One More Thing
During the whole conversation, Su Jun showed a little pride when he told one thing:
Because microscope-related accessories are expensive, he often uses the million-level scholarship he has previously won to make private subsidies.
The point is, he often digs some second-hand microscope objectives on top of Xianyu.
Speaking of excitement, he was full of energy: "It costs 200,000 yuan to sell a shot of this lens through conventional channels, but on Xianyu, because it is second-hand, you can buy it for only 20,000 yuan!"
"Everyone is using the channel of Xianyu, but how to determine whether the second-hand objective lens is reliable and available?"
He replied:
It depends on the individual's eyesight. For me, I have been in Germany for 6 years (PhD + post-PhD), I have been exposed to many microscopes, and I am very clear about the performance and characteristics of most of the lenses.
So I can tell from the photo if the lens is flawed or not.
Well, for professionals, their eyes are rulers.
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