Scientific Research Achievements | Decoding human aging from an evolutionary point of view, etc

Keep track of scientific research results and keep abreast of the latest developments!

1

Decoding human aging from an evolutionary perspective

Aging is a common challenge for modern humans. With the advancement of science and technology and the improvement of medical conditions, the average life expectancy of human beings continues to increase, and the advent of an aging society makes it particularly important to deepen the understanding and research of aging. Recently, Professor Wang Zhao and his team from the School of Pharmacy of Tsinghua University published an article proposing a new perspective to understand the human aging process, challenging traditional gerontology research.

From an evolutionary perspective, this paper defines human aging as the stage of life after the end of the reproductive period. At the same time, we believe that we should not only focus on the extension of overall life expectancy, but also on healthy life expectancy. It is the difference between healthy life expectancy and overall life expectancy that is contributing to the increasing burden of population ageing. As a significant proportion of the elderly population suffers from chronic diseases, medical costs rise with age, and as the life expectancy of the population increases, the economic burden on the social healthcare system increases. Wang Zhao proposed that gerontology should not only focus on the extension of time lifespan, but also on the extension of healthy lifespan, and the research and policy formulation of aging should also pay more attention to the improvement of the quality of life and well-being of the elderly in their later years. It is believed that with the progress and breakthrough of research on the biology of aging, the goal of healthy aging will no longer be far away, and everyone can enjoy a vibrant, dignified and satisfying life in old age.

Source:

https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1175/111070.htm

2

The role of university enrollment expansion in promoting innovation in the manufacturing industry

Recently, Ma Xiao, assistant professor at Peking University HSBC Business School, published his paper "College Expansion, Trade, and Innovation: Evidence from China" in the International Economic Review. This paper examines the role of China's university enrollment expansion policy, which began in 1999, in promoting innovation in China's manufacturing industry. The paper focuses on two characteristic facts of China's economy: first, the R&D intensity of Chinese companies has grown rapidly, with the share of R&D in GDP increasing from 0.9% in 2000 to 2.4% in 2020, and at the same time, the number of patent applications has also increased significantly; According to WTO statistics, China's main export product category has changed from the category of "textile and garment" at the beginning of 2000 to the category of "communication equipment" at present.

Through a quantitative analysis of the model, the paper found that university enrollment expansion could explain 72% of the increase in China's manufacturing innovation intensity between 2003 and 2018, and promoted a significant increase in the technological content of China's exports, reflecting the important role of expanding the scale of higher education in promoting enterprise innovation and trade structure transformation. When international trade is not possible, the impact of university expansion on production and innovation is reduced by about 10%-30%, reflecting the key role of trade openness in improving the effectiveness of higher education policies for output and innovation by enabling high-tech firms to expand in foreign markets.

Source:

https://news.pku.edu.cn/jxky/dbf56ab408d649c38275d990e9e0c52f.htm

3

Pioneered the "enhanced version" of leukemia treatment

It is easy to relapse, infection, and has a low long-term survival rate, which has been a long-standing problem in the treatment of leukemia. Although breakthroughs have been made in the treatment of leukemia with the advancement of medicine, and CAR-T cell therapy and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation have brought hope to many patients with refractory relapsed leukemia, the problem has not been completely solved. In clinical treatment, some patients who received CAR-T cell therapy still experienced relapse, and complications related to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, such as graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), led to increased mortality.

How to bring back a patient whose life is on the line? Professor Huang He's team from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine and Liangzhu Laboratory has designed a new integrated program of sequential allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for CAR-T cell therapy, which combines the two treatment methods and successfully solves many problems left by traditional treatment regimens. The new "strong combination" protocol pioneered by the team provides a new treatment option for leukemia patients who cannot receive traditional allogeneic stem cell transplantation, brings new hope to more patients with end-stage malignant blood diseases, and opens up a new path for the medical community to explore more effective treatment methods.

Source: http://www.news.zju.edu.cn/2024/0425/c23225a2908709/page.htm

4

Progress has been made in the basic theoretical research of quantum batteries

In recent years, the research on quantum batteries has been one of the most interesting quantum technology issues, and the increasing demand for energy has also stimulated interest in the research of transformative energy storage and supply devices. It is expected that through the characteristics of quantum systems and the reconstruction of thermodynamic and dynamic laws at the microscopic scale, combined with the experimental technology of precise detection and manipulation at the qubit level, a new principle energy storage and supply device with smaller size, stronger charging power, higher charging capacity and greater extractable work will be realized. Although quantum batteries have developed rapidly in recent years, their implementation and application still face challenges: the aging problem of quantum batteries, which is due to the spontaneous dissipation of stored energy due to the environment-induced decoherence of quantum batteries; Quantum batteries generally use the coherent coupling between the battery and the charger to charge, but the charging scheme is subject to the inevitable decoherence and the increase of the battery-charger spacing. In response to the above challenges, the Institute of Precision Measurement Science and Technology Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Hubei University and Lanzhou University, proposed a novel quantum battery scheme, and found that the non-Markov decoherence dynamics induced by the vacuum electromagnetic field in the waveguide can achieve continuous energy exchange between the charger and the battery without the effects of aging. This process realizes the contactless long-distance "wireless-like" charging of quantum batteries, which confirms the constructive role of the decoherence effect in establishing a coherent interconnection between battery and charger, and can solve the energy dissipation problem and distance limitation problem of quantum battery. This work has theoretical significance for further promoting the physical realization of quantum batteries. Source: https://www.cas.cn/syky/202405/t20240509_5014044.shtml

5

Scientists have made progress in the phenomenon of "bamboo flowering" and the evolution of the FT gene encoding flowering

The phenomenon of "bamboo flowering", that is, a large number of flowers once in a perennial life and dies after flowering, refers to the biological phenomenon that plants turn into reproductive growth after years of vegetative growth, and the plant population dies after the last flowering and fruiting. This phenomenon was first discovered in woody bamboo, which has attracted wide attention from biologists. The team of Hu Jinyong and Li Debao from the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Deng Yunfei's team from the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, based on the concept of "natural mutant", constructed a high-quality full-length transcription profile database and multi-tissue and multi-developmental gene expression maps of the perennial once-flowering plant Hunan Malana and the perennial multi-flowering plant Macrophyllum tetrazi, and found that photoperiod-circadian clock pathway genes such as FRS12, NFYA1, PRR5 and others may be involved in regulating the flowering of A. chinensis and maintaining the vegetative growth period of S. chinensis. This finding echoes the team's previous findings on flowering path variation in woody bamboos through comparative genetics.

In order to further elucidate the molecular mechanism of the formation of flowering habit diversity in Equilisa plants, the research team systematically compared and analyzed the evolutionary pattern of FT (encoding flowerin), a key node gene of the photoperiod-circadian circadian pathway. The results showed that the FT branch expanded in many groups of angiosperms, such as Legumidae, Malvacea, Sapindium and Lamiform, and formed two branches, FT1-like and FT2-like. These results lay a foundation for further exploration of the diversity of flowering habits of angiosperms, especially the molecular regulatory mechanism similar to the phenomenon of "bamboo flowering".

Source: https://www.cas.cn/syky/202404/t20240428_5012934.shtml