Everyone knows that Dolly was the first artificial animal to be successfully cloned at the beginning of the world.
Almost no one knows that with the painstaking efforts of the old man in China, Chinese created the world's first cloned fish as early as 1981, a full 15 years before the Dori sheep!
This old man is Tong Di Zhou, who pioneered China's "cloning" technology, is the pioneer of cloning technology in the world, and is known as the "father of Chinese cloning".
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For various reasons, his work was not well received and did not enter our biology textbooks.
Speaking of the name "Tong Di Zhou", everyone will definitely feel that they have heard of it.
Because, in our primary school textbooks, there was such a text called "We Must Fight for Breath."
The text is titled "Be Contentious" and reads as follows:
The values conveyed in a text related to Tong's First Week inspired me deeply and influenced me throughout my student years.
In tong's later years, someone once asked him what was the most impressive thing before liberation.
He replied, "One thing was the first time I scored 100 points in middle school. That incident made people know that I was no dumber than others. What others can do, I can do with hard work.
Another thing was that I completed frog ovulation stripping alone for the first time in Belgium. That incident convinced me that Chinese no dumber than foreigners. We can still do what foreigners think is difficult to do. ”
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Tong Dizhou was born on May 28, 1902, to a peasant family in Tongjia'ao, Dongxiang, Yinxian County, Zhejiang Province (now Tong village, Tangxi Town, Yinzhou District, Ningbo). People like Qian Xuesen, Deng Jiaxian, Yang Zhenning and others were all born in Shuxiang mendi and had no worries about food and clothing, while Tong Dizhou was born in a poor peasant family, lost his father at an early age, and was raised by his brothers.
One day, he was playing a game on the edge of the steps under the eaves, and suddenly found a row of finger-sized pits neatly arranged on the stone slabs, and his father explained: "For many years, dripping water through the stones!" ”
Then his father wrote to him the four big words "dripping water through the stone", and his father told him:
Perseverance in everything, and in the end something will definitely be gained.
These four words also became the motto of his life.
After several years of intermittent private schooling, it was not until he was 17 years old, with the help of his brother, that he went to school in Ningbo and became a third-grade transfer student.
Leaving this home, he entered the Ningbo Normal Preparatory Class (the same middle school as the later Nobel Laureate Tu Youyou). Because there is no tuition fee here, and there is also food and lodging, it is very fortunate to be able to go to school here.
However, his grades were the first in the class, because he had only learned a little knowledge of literature and history in the private school before, and there was no foundation in mathematics and science, and he had a very hard time in the first grade, and now as a third-grade transfer student, it was very difficult for tong to learn in the first week.
Relying on the spirit of "water drops and stones wearing", "street lamps" as a companion, the emperor does not live up to the hard-hearted people, the final exam, the first week of the child to rely on their own hard work, the results of each subject have reached 70 points, of which geometry got a full score.
By the final exam of the third year of high school, Tong's first week was even more energetic, and his overall score ranked first in the class.
Principal Chen Xiachang said with infinite emotion: "I have been the principal for many years, and I have never seen students who have improved so fast. ”
Tong Di Zhou recalled this past and said:
"I know I'm not dumber than others, and what others can do, I can do with hard work."
There is no genius in the world, and genius is exchanged for labor. ”
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In 1927, the Republic of China had been established for 16 years, and the 25-year-old Tong Dizhou graduated from Fudan University, and after graduation, he went to Tonglu County, Zhejiang Province, as a small civil servant, and was later recommended to nanjing Central University as a teaching assistant in the Department of Biology, where he also met Ye Yufen, the love of his life.
Later, Tong Dizhou was given a chance to study abroad, from Nanjing to Manchuria in the northern tip of China, and then by train through the Soviet Union to Belgium to study.
Before coming to Belgium, the two were simply married in a hotel in Ningbo.
During his study at the University of Brussels, Tong Di Zhou lived in great poverty, living in a small gatehouse and eating only the cheapest dry bread.
But he completed the world's first, frog egg outer membrane peeling off and sea squirt egg outer membrane peeling off.
Once, in an experiment, Professor Duck, Tong's mentor, asked the students to try to peel off the frog egg membrane, which is a very difficult operation, the frog egg is only the size of a small grain of rice, and the outside is tightly wrapped with three layers of soft membrane like protein, because the egg membrane is thin, and the operation can only be performed under the microscope.
Many people failed, and as soon as they peeled off the egg membrane, they tore the frog eggs. Only Tong First Completed the Experimental Task quietly.
Professor Duck was even more excited, this is a project he has not done in several years! He could not suppress the joy in his heart, and even claimed praise:
"Tong First Week is really good! Chinese really do it! ”
The success of the operation to peel off the frog's egg membrane in the first week of the child has shaken the European biological community, and the hands of the child's first week have been become the "golden fingers" of biology!
However, during the study abroad period, the news of the "918 Incident" spread to Europe, and Tong Puti gave up his work and organized international students to launch an anti-Japanese parade. As the head of the parade, Tong Di Zhou was imprisoned for two weeks for disturbing the law and order.
Four years later, after obtaining his Ph.D., he also went to the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom as a short-term visiting scholar. This is an honor that many international students dream of.
By this time he was already a very well-known experimental embryologist in Europe.
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In 1937, the Anti-Japanese War broke out, although Professor Duck repeatedly retained, Tong Dizhou still gave up the comfortable life in Europe and chose to return to China, returned to the turbulent China at that time, and became a professor in the Biology Department of Shandong University.
His wife, Ye Yufen, followed Tong Di Zhou to Shandong to help Tong Di Zhou in research work at home.
Later, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full swing, and Shandong University moved south. Tong Dizhou fled with his wife and children to Lizhuang in Yibin, Sichuan Province, to become a professor at Fudan University. At that time, the well-known scholars Who moved south with the school, such as Fu Sinian, Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin, and others, all took refuge in Lizhuang.
The family lived on a meagre salary and continued to study when even eating became a problem.
To study embryology, the necessary experiments are indispensable, and there must be experimental equipment to do experiments, such as microscopes.
In order to get these devices, the child could not eat well and could not sleep in the first week.
One day, Tong Saw a Binocular Microscope for German Cuisine at a thrift stall in the town. So Tong Di Zhou returned home and dragged his wife out of the house, asking her to enjoy the joy of discovering the "baby" with herself.
The lady who has not seen her husband's smiling face for a long time feels very strange, what is worth her husband so happy?
Seeing the microscope, Madame was also excited.
"How much does this microscope cost?"
"Sixty thousand pieces." (Equivalent to two years' salary for two people)
At night, they tossed around, unable to sleep, still thinking about the microscope.
The next day, the two went to the thrift stall again, but the boss saw that they really wanted to buy it, and raised the price to sixty-five thousand yuan.
Although Tong Di Zhou was a doctor and a professor, he was still poor. In order to continue their research, Tong Dizhou and his wife borrowed a lot of money from relatives and friends and sold their clothes, smashed pots and sold iron, and finally bought this microscope. And this debt, they took 10 years to pay off with the help of the government.
As a result, Ye Yufen did not even have a decent dress, and her life became more and more difficult.
With the help of this microscope, the paper on Tong's research results crossed the ocean and was published in a British journal.
His teacher, Joseph Needham, a member of the Royal Society, read the paper and went to Li Zhuang to visit Tong Di Zhou.
He couldn't believe that these sensational scientific research results actually came from a leaking log cabin!
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In 1948, Tong Washu was invited to Yale University in the United States, and in early 1949, after the Liberation War, Yale University asked him to be a visiting professor, but he refused
I am Chinese, and my greatest wish is for China to become rich and stronger soon! What I learned abroad must serve China. Now that China has hope, I want to return to the motherland as soon as possible.
After the founding of New China, Tong Dizhou, as one of the most well-known biologists in the world, as the leader of China's life sciences, has served as the director and vice president of the Department of Zoology of Shandong University, the director of the Department of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, presided over the work of the Institute of Zoology of the Institute of Experimental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and he also founded the Institute of Oceanography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and served as the director for 28 years, creating the cause of marine research in New China.
He has also trained a large number of outstanding talents and well-known scientists.
The chairman met with Tong Di Zhou and other scientists
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Unfortunately, during the catastrophe, Tong Di Zhou was also affected, and scientific research almost came to a standstill.
Tong Di Zhou was criticized, and someone forced Ye Yufen to expose and report Tong Di Zhou, but Ye Yufen categorically refused.
The other party scolded her sharply, and Ye Yufen calmly replied, "I understand him, so I want to protect him."
In the days when Tong Di Zhou was overthrown as a reactionary, she and Tong Di Zhou were dependent on each other for life and death.
Tong had nothing to do in the first week, was punished to clean the laboratory, and worked as a "sweeping monk" for ten years. But even sweeping the floor was serious and careful. People found that the day that was not cleaned up was probably the day of the child's first week.
Comrade Xiaoping once said indignantly: "Letting him sweep the floor is to ruin the saint."
Tong's first monday life did not fail the country, did not fail the people, but felt sorry for one person in his heart, that is, his wife Ye Yufen.
In addition to being the virtuous wife behind Tong Di Zhou, Ye Yufen is also his right-hand man in scientific research. But Ye Yufen has not been promoted to professor in her life, not because she is not qualified, but because Tong Dizhou is the leader of the unit, and she will leave the promotion opportunity to others every time.
According to statistics, the scientific research papers cooperated by the husband and wife accounted for more than 60% of the main papers in the first week of the child.
Most of Tong Dizhou's scientific research achievements are inseparable from his wife's painstaking efforts, and they are also known as the "Curie couple" in the Chinese biological community.
In 1976, Ye Yufen suffered a heart attack and died of ineffective rescue.
According to Tong Di Zhou's childhood recollection: "He (father) told us with tears that I was sorry for her, she was uncomfortable these days, and I did not accompany her to see a doctor. She did a great job, but because of me, she didn't get promoted to professor. ”
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In 1953, the new technology that the international biological field had just dabbled in, cloning, tong di zhou had also begun to study.
Everyone is on the same starting line.
When foreign scientists started with simple cloning studies of amphibians, Tong Zhou jumped straight away, setting a precedent for fish cell nuclear transplantation research.
One day in 1963, from the laboratory came the exciting news, Tong Di Zhou applied the cell nuclear transplantation technology, the goldfish nuclei transplanted into the nucleus of the horned fish eggs, found that the early characteristics of the juvenile fish after the nucleus transfer seem to be based on the cytoplasm, ten percent hatched into small fish, China's clone fish was born, becoming the world's first xenomorph transplant.
For the first time, the possibility of xenocryphals has been confirmed with fish, but for various reasons, it is difficult to attract the attention of the world's scientific community. Tong's scientific research was also forced to stop.
Later, as it grew up, this single-tailed crucian carp was called "the crucian carp of the first week" or "the child fish".
▲ Single-tailed goldfish
In 1981, Chinese scientists continued Tong's research and successfully bred the first cloned fish.
He published a research paper in the Journal of Aquatic Sciences in 1986, which was the world's first report on somatic cell cloning of animals.
15 years later, under the publicity of the BBC and the American media, dolly sheep became the world's most famous animal, and was rated as the first of the world's top ten scientific and technological progress that year, but as the world's pioneer of cloning technology, Tong Di Zhou and Chinese scientists were almost unknown.
It wasn't until 2005 that the Thomson Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) made a simple statement: Chinese scientists bred the first cloned fish, crucian carp, in 1981.
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On March 6, 1979, when he was giving a report for a researcher in Hangzhou, he had a heart attack due to overwork and fainted on the podium.
On March 30, in the corner of the People's Daily, Tong Dizhou died of a sudden heart attack in Beijing at the age of 77.
On the afternoon of April 11, a memorial service for Tong Di Zhou was held in the auditorium of the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, and the urn was covered with the flag of the Communist Party of China...
In the oath of joining the party, there is such a sentence: "In my lifetime, I will do more work for the country and the people."
Many people just regard him as a vow, but Mr. Tong Dizhou has really practiced it with his whole life.
He selflessly dedicated his life to the biological sciences and marine cause of the motherland, even in the last moments of his life, to Chinese scientific research.