Rong media reporter Huang Youran
In March 2020 and January 2021, Zhao Weiying's team published important scientific research results in the international core journals "cancer cell" and "cancer communications", and in June and July this year, Zhao Weiying was invited to make reports on two clinical studies at the 13th World T-Cell Lymphoma Congress and the 16th World Lymphoma Congress. This is part of Zhao Weijing's many research achievements, in the "one door four academicians" are the hematology giants of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine affiliated Ruijin Hospital, Zhao Weiyun strives to inherit and develop, as a new generation of blood leaders in Ruijin Hospital, the lymphoma discipline she led has become a new benchmark for the hematology discipline of Ruijin Hospital, making important contributions to promoting the development of lymphoma translational medicine, and also making Chinese scientists rank among the world's top in the field of lymphoma research.
If you have seen Zhao Weixing, you will be brought into an aura by her, which combines elegance, tenacity, intelligence and calmness mixed with the great love of the doctor's benevolence, she will always speak slowly and slowly, and her eyes will be firm. We paraphrase the phrase of the great director to describe Vivien Leigh, the star of the movie "Gone with the Wind", "To have such beauty, there is no need to have such wisdom, there is no need to have such wisdom, there is no need to have such tenacity." ”
Professor Zhao Weiying
Zhao Weiying's almost every day is running at high speed, from her scientific research results can glimpse her work intensity, Zhao Weiying's team published two heavyweight articles in the international core magazine in a gap of one year, outsiders see is the release after success, but for such a discipline as lymphoma, from few people to usher in rapid development in the past twenty years, every top laboratory in the world is doing research, every step forward, is the leader after countless failures. Zhao Weiying's team has always maintained a strong scientific research ability, as clinicians, the research they have done is gradually transforming and guiding and changing the clinical treatment strategy.
On March 16, 2020, Zhao Weiying's team published an important article in Cancer Cell, which is a comprehensive study on molecular heterogeneity and targeted therapy strategies for nk/t cell lymphoma. Extranodal nk/t cell lymphoma is one of the most common highly malignant lymphomas in Chinese patients, with a very high degree of malignancy, with a five-year survival rate of less than 30% for patients, while there are few international studies.
Extranodal nk/t cell lymphoma is highly heterogeneous, and tumor cells and tumor tissues are very fragile in vitro, making it difficult to do further molecular studies. Through method optimization, the research of Zhao Weiying's team found three different molecular subtypes of extranodal nk/t cell lymphoma, different molecular subtypes have different cell gene mutations, different gene expression abnormalities, different cell sources, and different molecular biological characteristics of Eb virus, which have found new targets through the study of pathogenesis. In January 2021, Zhao's team published a multicenter study on the clinical outcomes of refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in Cancer Communications. In June and July this year, Zhao Weiying was invited to give two clinical studies at the 13th World T-Cell Lymphoma Congress and the 16th World Lymphoma Congress, which are the beginning of improving the treatment effect of high-risk patients, just like Zhao Weiying's previous scientific research has made breakthroughs in the field of translational medicine and precision medicine, the ultimate purpose of these research results is to translate the results into clinical treatment strategies.
On December 19, 2020, the first national major infrastructure of translational medicine, known as the "heavy weapon of the country", was launched in Ruijin Hospital, which covers an area of 54,000 square meters and has been completed after two five-year planning, and the center is committed to the cycle of translational medicine research from clinical practice to basic research, pharmaceutical products and technology development, and then back to clinical practice. The center has 300 research beds, of which 150 are for patients with hematological tumors.
The origin of the center's completion and the translational medicine ward begins ten years ago. In 2010, Academician Wang Zhenyi won the National High-tech Award, academician Wang Zhenyi, Academician Chen Zhu, academician Chen Saijuan committed to the clinical application and mechanism of the combined targeted treatment of all-trans retinoic acid and arsenic trioxide for acute promyelocytic leukemia, so that acute promyelocytic leukemia from the original highest fatality rate, become the first adult acute leukemia that can be cured. Starting from this concept, the three academicians hope that the concept of clinical or basic research integration in the future can be applied to more blood disease treatment, so that more patients can benefit from the concept of translational medicine.
Academician Wang Zhenyi wrote a letter to President Hu Jintao, officially opened the curtain of the construction of translational medicine in the center, in the translational medicine research support network covering major fields in the country, Shanghai in line with the principle of "first to try", translational medicine national major scientific and technological infrastructure (Shanghai) was established in 2013, started construction in 2016, and officially used in December 2020, becoming the first state-level large facility in China's clinical field.
How to do clinical research in this world's top laboratory? Zhao Weiying took lymphoma patients as an example, each patient should do cell morphology (morphology), immunology (immunology), cytogenetics (cytogenetics) and molecular biology (molecular), that is, micro typing, micm is gradually deepened from the surface of the disease to a more accurate molecular level, because of the large heterogeneity of lymphoma, the overall assessment of tumor source and molecular level is more important. Through micm, it is possible to understand what drugs have a therapeutic effect, and doctors tailor an optimal treatment plan for patients according to the targeted therapy strategy driven by molecular typing, which significantly improves the patient's response rate and long-term disease-free survival.
For patients with relapse and refractory treatment, there are more novel drugs, such as new antibody small molecule targeted drugs, for rare and special targets, and then choose a second-line treatment plan or a cell therapy regimen.
"Pushing forward layer by layer, so that there are fewer and fewer patients who cannot be treated." Zhao Weiying said that because of the limited number of beds, at present, only clinical treatment targets can be arranged, and patients with clinical trial research drugs hope that through our continuous research and development of new targets, more patients can have the opportunity to get remission again and return to life.
As a doctor, Zhao Weiying believes that the goal of scientific research is to see if it can cure patients, "Patients who could not be cured before can now be cured, which can be called a breakthrough in the discipline," Zhao Weiying said, and curing patients is the biggest goal of doctors.
In the past, lymphoma patients were classified as diffuse b, nkt, peripheral t... It is now possible to distinguish which molecular subtype is the one, and what kind of molecular subtype corresponds to what kind of treatment plan, giving doctors more objective choices for targeted drugs. This makes it possible to "tailor-made" treatment program advocated by Zhao Weiying, Zhao Weiyun takes the treatment drug as an example, there used to be 10 drugs, doctors should use them randomly from 1 to 10, and now they can directly measure which drug is most effective and use it directly.
New treatment options and ideas are constantly emerging, constantly turning the impossible into possible. Lymphoma patients with a high degree of malignancy are subject to chemotherapy, because of the pain and complications of chemotherapy, patients over 80 years old are almost not treated. In 2020, Zhao Weiying introduced the concept of lymphoma treatment "chemofree" at the csco conference, and a large number of studies in the report combined with Ruijin's experience, for indolent lymphoma, through evidence-based medical research data, chemofree replaced conventional chemotherapy; for invasive lymphoma, exploratory research was conducted, and chemofree treatment was carried out for special patients who could not undergo chemotherapy. For example, elderly patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma can now be treated with a chemofree treatment regimen combined with rituximab, lenalidomide and btk inhibitors, which is no less effective than the chemotherapy regimen.
As a world-class lymphoma doctor and scholar, Zhao Weiyun almost did not choose hematology.
Zhao Weiying was born in Xiangmendi, a family of doctors, and all that was discussed at the dinner table at the family gathering was medicine, and medicine became an inevitable choice. She chose Shanghai Jiao Tong University (formerly Shanghai Second Medical University) to enter the seven-year medical English class, and because of her outstanding English scores during school, she could skip the English test, so she chose French as a second foreign language.
Zhao Weiying's mother was a pediatrician, and her mother felt that most of the blood tumors at that time were incurable diseases, and every day was a farewell, hoping that Zhao Weiyun could choose a relatively sunny department. Zhao Weiying finally chose the department of hematology, because she wanted to make patients "change from untreatable to can be treated, and what can be treated becomes curable."
In the blood team of Shanghai Ruijin's "top match", under the advice of his mentor Academician Chen Saijuan, Zhao Weiying chose the lymphoma direction that was still "a new disease" at that time and entered this extremely challenging field.
Most of the top universities in the world are concentrated in English-speaking or French-speaking countries, when choosing to study abroad, Zhao Weiying chose the Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris and the Institute of Hematology of paris Seventh University in France, on the one hand, this is the place where Academician Chen Zhu and Academician Chen Saijuan once studied, Zhao Weiyun hopes to complete the inheritance along the footsteps of the teacher, on the other hand, Zhao Weiyun, who can almost reach the native speaker in English, hopes to challenge himself and learn French.
Although Zhao Weiying majored in French at university, "learning French and speaking French" are completely different things, scholars from all over the world can communicate in fluent English at top universities, but Zhao Weiying has completed "only speaking two sentences of French" to "defending his doctoral dissertation in French" in two years.
In 2007, Zhao became the youngest female doctoral supervisor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and in 2008, she was appointed as a doctoral supervisor by the University of Paris VII in France, one of the few Chinese female experts among the tutors.
Zhao Weiyuan, who has long gone to the leadership position, understands that the leader is "first of all, don't put yourself in the position of leadership", the leader should think differently, understand the needs of other people in the team, become the glue, but also become a catalyst, unite the team, discover and amplify the advantages of each person, "realize their dreams, you can achieve your dreams." ”
Zhao Weiying is still sitting in the clinic, scientific research, management, hospital development... In order to be busy with his original intention of "not being able to treat and being able to treat and being able to treat and being able to cure", Zhao Weiyun said that he was responsible for the team and must lead the team to move forward, second, he was responsible for the discipline, and hematology must lead the discipline to continuously break through, and the third was to be responsible for the patient and let the patient get the best treatment.
With the responsibility in mind and the footsteps not embellished, Zhao Weiying is still continuing to explore more possibilities for lymphoma treatment.