At the 2020 Future Science and Technology Award Ceremony, the attribution of the Life Science Award attracted wide attention from the medical community.
This award not only represents the recognition of the past achievements of the winners, but also means that the research results they have made will have a profound impact on the future development direction of medicine.
In the expectation of everyone, a 96-year-old man won this honor, and he is Wang Zhenyi, a famous academician in the mainland and the winner of the highest national science and technology award.
Plain clothes, bold and chivalrous, white-haired and pale angel heart. This nearly 100-year-old man has spent decades interpreting the meaning of doctors, and has made unremitting efforts to overcome the most ferocious leukemia!
Scholarly and talented
Different family education often shapes a child into a different appearance. Although Wang Zhenyi was born in the troubled times of the Republic of China, under the protection of a wealthy family, he had a comfortable childhood.
In Shanghai, where the lights and poor families coexist, Wang Zhenyi's family is fortunate to belong to the former, with a three-story western-style house and a lush garden, which bears witness to his good family background.
Under the influence of scholars, Wang Zhenyi and his siblings are very focused on learning, not only familiar with ancient Chinese books, but also mastered more than two foreign languages.
At that time, Western countries opened schools in the Shanghai Concession, and Wang Zhenyi, under the arrangement of his father, studied in the Saposai Primary School in the French Concession.
Since childhood, Wang Zhenyi has shown a different talent for learning, whether it is literary and historical allusions or mathematical knowledge, as long as the teacher teaches it once, he can be familiar with it.
With his extraordinary academic talent and unremitting dedication, Wang Zhenyi has achieved excellent results in his class, and has also won an invitation to Aurora University.
Without passing the exam, Wang Zhenyi successfully came to Aurora University. At that time, due to the death of his grandmother, he chose medicine due to grief.
It was this choice that allowed Wang Zhenyi to start his extraordinary life, and also allowed countless patients in later generations to usher in a life-saving doctor.
During his years at the university, Wang Zhenyi quickly accumulated knowledge in the medical field, and at the same time often participated in hospital consultations, and his medical level continued to improve.
Under the unanimous recommendation of the doctors, Wang Zhenyi gradually became a graduate student and a doctoral student from a college student, and successfully obtained the qualification to diagnose and treat as a doctor.
In 1948, Wang Zhenyi, who graduated with a doctorate, came to Guangci Hospital and started his career as a resident doctor.
With the continuous enrichment of clinical experience, Wang Zhenyi realized that there are many problems in the field of medicine in mainland China, one of which is the lack of research on blood diseases.
In order to make up for the research gap in this field, Wang Zhenyi decisively found Kuang Ankun, a master of internal medicine, to further learn relevant knowledge.
At that time, the People's Republic of China had just been founded, and everything was in a state of ruin, and the same was true in the field of medical research.
After many clinical treatments, Wang Zhenyi found that wound bleeding is actually very related to the coagulation factors in the blood, but there is no suitable measurement method in China.
Due to the lack of silica gel and other materials in the hospital at that time, Wang Zhenyi creatively found paraffin wax as a substitute and successfully created a new detection method.
In addition to the research in the laboratory, Wang Zhenyi took the initiative to sign up for the "Rescue Team to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" and provided assistance to the soldiers in the rear hospital of the battlefield.
In the two years of life and death, Wang Zhenyi has seen too many life and death partings, and has a deeper understanding of the discipline of blood.
After returning to Shanghai after the war, Wang Zhenyi made the treatment of hemophilia, which was often encountered on the battlefield, the focus of his research.
After more than a year of research, Wang Zhenyi has successfully found a new diagnosis and treatment method that helps doctors diagnose symptoms faster.
With the continuous increase of medical experience, Wang Zhenyi's research in the field of hematology has become more and more mature, but there is a disease that makes people smell and change color, but it has always been the biggest obstacle in his heart.
This disease is known as the incurable disease - leukemia.
Doctors are benevolent and ambitious
In the hospital wards, Mr. Wang often sees patients suffering from leukemia, lying on their beds, begging doctors to cure him, but there is nothing he can do about it.
This frustration hit Wang Zhenyi's heart again and again, and how to find an effective treatment plan has become a knot in Wang Zhenyi's heart.
In the eyes of most people, leukemia is an extremely terrible disease, not only has no effective treatment, but also has a very high mortality rate.
But what everyone doesn't know is that leukemia is actually a general term for a class of blood diseases, and there are many subdivisions under the category of leukemia.
In general, the development of chronic leukemia is relatively slow, and doctors can still take some treatment measures, but once acute leukemia occurs, it is like a death sentence for the patient.
Acute promyelocytic leukemia is one of the most terrible diseases, and cancer cells multiply indefinitely in the bone marrow, and there are no specific drugs available at the time.
When Wang Zhenyi first came into contact with this leukemia, the medical community in mainland China did not have a deep understanding of this disease, let alone the practical experience provided by his predecessors.
Books have become an important channel for Wang Zhenyi to understand this disease, and looking at various cases around the world, Wang Zhenyi is even more determined to overcome this medical difficulty.
After the daily consultation and ward rounds, Wang Zhenyi would go to the archives and libraries to look for useful clues from the dense rows of documents.
At that time, in addition to China, scientists from other countries were also looking for feasible solutions, and there were some theoretical results that were allowed for reference in international medical journals.
By chance, Wang Zhenyi saw a paper published by an Israeli medical scientist, which pointed out that leukemia cells can be transformed into normal cells under certain conditions.
The data of experiments with mice in the paper aroused Wang Zhenyi's interest, after all, this is also a rare case of healing in living animals.
In order to verify the feasibility of this operation method, Wang Zhenyi found several doctors, jointly set up a medical team, and started the experiment of "leukemia cell induction differentiation".
Due to the poor research conditions at that time, the hospital could only provide Wang Zhenyi with a four- or five-square-meter hut, and the instruments and equipment could only use the remaining part of clinical treatment.
Insufficient materials, backward equipment, and information blockage, all kinds of difficulties stood like a mountain in front of Wang Zhenyi and others.
But Wang Zhenyi was not intimidated by difficulties, and in the face of fresh lives, their difficulties became insignificant.
Whenever the sun rises, Wang Zhenyi will come to the laboratory to be fully prepared for today's experiment.
After that, he would go to the hospital outpatient clinic to complete the day's treatment, and then after work, he would go into the laboratory to start the test.
Round after round of experiments consumed the patience of everyone in the team and Wang Zhenyi's youth.
For three years, he didn't give himself a day off, he didn't let the lab stop for a day, but this effort did not pay off.
Under the limitations of material conditions, it has always been difficult for Wang Zhenyi's team to break through the bottleneck, and the leukemia cells are like maggots attached to the bone, and there is no hope of being cured.
Not only Wang Zhenyi's team, but also other foreign research groups have also failed to find an effective solution, and the situation that appeared in the original paper seems to be just a flash in the pan.
Emotions of failure continued to spread in the lab, and everyone except Wang Zhenyi began to question the study.
After all, people only have a few decades of youth in their lives, and it is better to change the direction of their research as soon as possible than to waste time in this hopeless project.
Wang Zhenyi noticed the change in everyone's mood, and in a meeting, Wang Zhenyi showed the determination to win, inspired everyone's morale, and made results for the sake of the patients outside the door!
With Wang Zhenyi as the backbone, the members of the scientific research team reawakened their inner fighting spirit and continued to return to their respective posts.
It was at this time that the publication of a foreign document provided a new direction for Wang Zhenyi's research.
The road to scientific research cuts through thorns
This medical literature mentions an acidic substance under the influence of which tumor cells differentiate.
Wang Zhenyi is keenly aware that if this acidic substance is effective against other tumor cells, then it is likely to be effective against leukemia cells as well.
In order to test this conjecture, Wang Zhenyi approached the hospital, hoping to obtain the acidic substance. But the result was very regrettable, at that time there were no such cutting-edge drugs in all hospitals in the country.
In desperation, Wang Zhenyi had no choice but to settle for the next best thing, using another acidic substance as a substitute to see if it was possible to achieve results.
Over the next six months, the research team was thoroughly in a state of "combat readiness", keeping an eye on any changes in leukemia cells in the laboratory.
Finally, after numerous failures, the research team finally found the right drug ratio and successfully achieved a breakthrough in catalyzing leukemia cells from juvenile to maturation.
In the process of writing the experimental report, the members of the scientific research team could not stop crying, and the simple words embody their years of hard work.
However, at present, Wang Zhenyi's achievements are still limited to the laboratory of bottles and cans, and have not yet been truly applied to clinical practice, and it cannot be proved that this drug can work in people.
Because the acidic substances used by Wang Zhenyi have side effects on the human body, the hospital did not dare to use them rashly until a child appeared.
At that time, the hospital saw a five-year-old girl with acute promyelocytic leukemia whose vital signs were already in danger.
According to traditional chemotherapy methods, the girl had to go through a painful treatment process, and the results were not guaranteed.
Faced with such a young life, Wang Zhenyi offered to use a new treatment plan to gain a glimmer of life for this girl.
After repeated discussions with the girl's parents, the girl's parents agreed to Wang's method of injecting the girl with a new drug preparation.
After a week of worry, the girl's condition changed miraculously, and Wang Zhenyi rescued the young life from the hands of death.
Subsequently, Wang Zhenyi's treatment plan was applied to 24 patients, all of whom achieved varying degrees of improvement.
From theoretical research to practical application, after eight years of hard work day and night, Wang Zhenyi snatched the dawn of recovery for patients.
But when Wang Zhenyi submitted his scientific research results for publication, he failed to knock on the door of the office of a well-known medical journal.
The magazine believed that Wang Zhenyi and others were front-line doctors and not academic authorities, so it refused to publish Wang Zhenyi's research results.
Wang Zhenyi, who was shut down, could only publish his paper in overseas medical journals. With the publication of the paper, Wang Zhenyi instantly caused a shock in the medical community.
Professor Richard, an internationally renowned cancer research expert, called Wang Zhenyi's achievements an epoch-making medical miracle.
After that, a large number of overseas experts came to Shanghai to learn and experience, and countless honors surrounded Wang Zhenyi like a tide.
If Wang Zhenyi had patented this medical research, he would have gained endless wealth, but he resolutely dedicated this achievement to the world.
The benevolence of a doctor, compared with external honors and titles, is the most important cause in his heart to cure those who are trapped in the abyss and save those who are suffering.
Since then, Wang Zhenyi has led the students and scientific research team to continuously optimize this specific therapy, and successfully increased the survival rate of patients from 10% to 97%!
In 2010, Wang Zhenyi won the highest national science and technology award, and at the same time, the International Minor Planet Center named a planet "Wang Zhenyi Star".
The reputation is full of apricot forest tree monuments
During the Three Kingdoms period, Dong Feng, a famous doctor, did not accept money from patients, but only asked the cured to plant a few apricot trees. Years later, it became a forest, leaving behind a mountain of almond trees.
Wang Zhenyi voluntarily gave up the patent, so that patients could get cheap drug treatment, and now, among the leukemia drugs, this life-saving drug is only sold for more than 200 yuan.
Through the trajectory of time and space for thousands of years, Wang Zhenyi once again set up a monument for doctors with his actions in today's materialistic era.
Those patients who recovered from the hospital and left are like apricot trees thousands of years ago, recording Wang Zhenyi's great dedication.
In addition to these medical achievements, Wang Zhenyi also passed on his medical spirit to later generations from generation to generation.
Under the guidance of Wang Zhenyi, dozens of medical doctoral students and graduate students walked out of the campus and came to the front-line treatment positions.
They inherited Wang Zhenyi's benevolence as a doctor, and used their knowledge to save those patients who were in trouble and fire.
Confucius had 3,000 disciples and trained 72 sages. Although Wang Zhenyi is not full of peach and plum in the world, he has created the miracle of "one class and four academicians".
The most famous Chen Zhu and Chen Saijuan, the academician couple, are Wang Zhenyi's protégés. In addition, there is also Academician Chen Guoqiang, the youngest chief scientist of "937".
These talents who came out of Wang Zhenyi's classroom have become the mainstay of today's mainland scientific research and academic circles, opening up new territories for mainland medical research.
As Wang Zhenyi gradually entered old age, it was physically difficult to stay in the laboratory for a long time, so in order to give the younger generation more opportunities, he took the initiative to resign as the director of the Shanghai Blood Research Institute.
When everyone thought that Wang Zhenyi would spend his old age in peace, he did not stop his scientific research.
After leaving the laboratory, Wang Zhenyi focused his work on the relatively relaxed classroom and hospital. Every day after seeing a patient, he tries to get the latest medical report.
In the past, in order to record a document, Wang Zhenyi had to copy the transcript by hand in the library. Now, in order to understand the academic dynamics, Wang Zhenyi, who is in his 80s, has begun to learn to use computers.
From booting to networking, Wang Zhenyi is like a primary school student, mastering new things little by little and constantly reading new materials.
On campus, Wang Zhenyi also adopted an "open-book exam" once a week, but this time the object of the exam was not the students, but himself.
He asked each student to collect a difficult case and discuss it in class, and at the same time, he would also make a PPT of the literature he collected this week to share with everyone.
In Wang Zhenyi's own words, this work is a chore, and you must be willing to work hard, "die", and even more endure loneliness.
Looking back at Wang Zhenyi's life journey, the words "endure loneliness" are the "secret weapon" of his continuous success.
On the road of leading students to explore the peak of scientific research for decades, Wang Zhenyi's medical ethics and teacher ethics have won everyone's admiration.
In order to allow more students to devote themselves to scientific research, Wang Zhenyi will keep an eye on each student's paper and help them revise it word by word until there is no problem with the paper.
According to Chen Guoqiang's recollections, at that time, Mr. Wang Zhenyi was very busy during the day, but he would still revise their papers for them at night, and every word had to be pondered repeatedly before stopping.
In fact, most of the credit for the scientific research articles completed by these students should be placed on Mr. Wang Zhenyi.
However, Wang Zhenyi has never had the idea of "greedy for merit", as long as it is a scientific research project in which students participate, the student's name will definitely be signed in the position of the first and second authors.
And their names will either not appear at all, or they will be placed at the end of the participating authors, as a recognition of the students' efforts.
This kind of behavior of loving and cherishing talents often makes students extremely moved, so much so that they take the initiative to ask the teacher to advance the signing position, but Wang Zhenyi will always resolutely refuse.
In the era of doctors, Wang Zhenyi has really achieved a reputation in the apricot forest, and in the season when a hundred flowers are blooming, he has always been a towering tree with a single branch.
Under this towering tree, countless seedlings wantonly absorb the aura of heaven and earth, and under the vigorous growth, the forest of the mainland medical community has become more lush.
Epilogue:
Since 1996, when he received the first prize of 1 million yuan, Wang Zhenyi donated everything to hospitals, schools and blood research institutes.
After that, Wang Zhenyi won the 5 million prize of the highest national science and technology award, and donated 4.5 million yuan to the hospital, and the rest was donated to the scientific research team members.
In 2020, 96-year-old Wang Zhenyi donated all the 7 million prize money won by the Life Science Award to the Foundation for Poverty Alleviation.
In more than 60 years of medical research, money has never been Wang Zhenyi's choice, and the conscience of a doctor is the belief he has always pursued.
In the song of the new era, we should be grateful to such a great professor and to this doctor who has done his best for the people.