Is the era of life sciences coming?

At Huawei's 19th Global Analyst Conference which opened yesterday, Huawei, based on the thinking that "information technology will grow a hundredfold in more than a decade", focused on topics such as "future exploration, industrial innovation, digitalization and low carbonization", and proposed 10 questions and challenges for the future.

Life science issues came up many times at this conference, and it can be said that great minds think alike. Life science has become a consensus among many people, and many top giants in the industry are making similar calls, which represents a trend.

This time, Huawei mentioned two basic issues, one of which is related to life sciences; and among the eight cutting-edge technology challenges, two are also related to life sciences. In fact, the academic community may have reacted earlier.

Today I will talk to you about knowledge related to life sciences.

01. Life sciences are accelerating

Take the Nobel Prize, the most famous award in academia, as an example. Among the three major awards in natural sciences, the Prize in Physiology or Medicine is 100% awarded to life sciences. Since 2000, about two-thirds of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry have also been awarded to the field of life sciences.

If this is a comprehensive personal achievement, then the most direct academic frontier is to clearly focus on the field of life sciences.

Take Nature and Science, two comprehensive top journals recognized by the academic community, as examples. If you have paid attention to their latest papers, you will find that almost half of the research is about life sciences.

As early as 2005, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the founding of the journal, the editorial board of Science gathered the wisdom of the world's top scientists and proposed 125 important frontier issues. Among these issues, life science issues accounted for 46%. If the 9% of cognitive science is added, life science can be said to occupy half of the market.

These phenomena all prove one fact: the future is the era of life sciences.

Why was it proposed in these years, and not earlier in the early 20th century or earlier?

This is not accidental; in fact, it is the inevitable result of technological development.

02. The beginning of life science is an inevitable result of the development of human technology

If you are familiar with the history of science, you may have wondered why Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation in the 17th century, Lavoisier named oxygen and hydrogen in the 18th century, but it was not until the 19th century that Darwin observed and proposed the macro theory of evolution, and it was not until the 20th century that humans rediscovered genetics and found human genetic material.

In fact, an important reason is that people's understanding of science is, on the whole, a process from simple systems to complex systems.

Based on the highly developed mathematics, understanding physics through mathematics was an important process in early physics, and it also fundamentally interpreted that the essence of the world is atoms.

On this basis, the understanding of the molecular world formed by the combination of atoms led to the era of chemistry.

What about life science? It is a more comprehensive composition based on complex chemical molecules, complex biological reactions between organic molecules, and increasingly diverse and comprehensive complex systems from molecules to cells to individuals. The exploration of it is bound to be inseparable from the foundation of physics, chemistry and even mathematics. Because of this, the development of life science must be lagging and conditional. Just like the development of chemistry has allowed us to understand the basic components of life, such as proteins and nucleic acids, and the development of physics has promoted the discovery of the DNA double helix.

Today, we have acquired a wealth of knowledge in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, so we have begun to explore life sciences, which will also strive to solve some of the ultimate problems of mankind throughout the ages:

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?

03. Who am I?

These are questions of cognition and origin, each of which is a grand proposition.

Cognitive issues can be said to be the crown of life sciences. How does our brain work? How are our behaviors and psychology regulated? What are the mechanisms of various brain functions and diseases? Can humans make additional use of the brain, such as brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence? Even more, can humans create the brain? In other words, we need to understand the brain, protect the brain, develop the brain, and create the brain [1].

The same is true for the origin question: Is life native to Earth or is it from outside? Was the earliest life DNA, RNA, protein, or something else? What is the path of life's evolution? [2]

04. Where do I come from?

This issue has at least two levels: the issue of origin and the issue of medicine.

The origin is as above. From a medical point of view, is the origin and determination of human gender really caused by XY? What is the development of early human embryos? Can humans be born in artificial wombs? Will the human Y chromosome disappear in the future? Can human eggs regenerate? [2]

05. Where am I going?

This question is primarily a medical and cognitive science question.

The former determines when humans will die. After all, disease can be said to be a problem that humans have always faced, from minor colds and fevers to major cancers, coronary heart disease, and the epidemics that have been prevalent in recent years. These are all problems that our medicine has been working hard to solve. With the help of medicine, human life expectancy has increased dramatically, especially since the 20th century. This is all thanks to the joint efforts of countless doctors and scholars. The acceptance of death and the future is another important topic. Life sciences have not yet defined this content, so many people still believe that there is another world after death [3].

Of course, the development of life sciences is not just about these lofty topics, but more about solving practical problems for humans.

When infectious diseases such as the new coronavirus are rampant, we need vaccines and drugs to respond. This is the problem that life sciences are working hard to solve.

Traditional vaccines have a long production cycle. How to deal with rapidly changing viruses? New vaccines are designed based on immune principles, antigen-antibody recognition mechanisms, and core areas. They can be produced more quickly and adjusted in a timely manner.

Traditional drug development cycles are long and are often based on a few drugs that have undergone a series of modifications, such as the well-known penicillin series.

Ampicillin, oxacillin, amoxicillin, etc. But facing the endless emergence of organisms, even drug resistance, how to deal with it?

Designing and developing peptide drugs specifically targeting pathogens based on their structure has become a new option.

In the past three years, COVID-19 can be said to be the absolute theme of the world. Basically, all kinds of life revolve around COVID-19. When dealing with COVID-19, one of the most effective ways humans have found is: vaccine.

Genetic diseases are annoying, difficult to treat after birth, and very worrying.

In this case, the third-generation IVF technology can avoid embryos with genetic defects based on the strategy of genetic pre-screening.

As for dominant genetic diseases, researchers are currently working to use gene editing technology to solve the problem. By editing embryonic genes, genetic errors can be corrected directly at the embryonic level [4].

Even for adults with genetic problems, there are cutting-edge areas trying to use gene editing and then introduction to reduce the impact.

And in situations like humans where organ damage eventually leads to systemic damage and death, solving organ problems has become an important idea today.

As for the issue of aging and death that troubles countless people, it is now a hot topic of research. Scientists are searching everywhere and painstakingly studying various anti-aging strategies, and have even achieved a certain degree of rejuvenation in animals [5].

It can be said that the development of life sciences is essentially to serve mankind. It involves both the deep thoughts we have when we look up at the starry sky and the down-to-earth solutions to the problems of birth, aging, illness and death that mankind is facing today.

Therefore, as science and technology have developed to this day, it is time for life science to start. Huawei's press conference can be said to be a case of great minds thinking alike, representing the attention and cognition of the world's top wisdom in both academia and industry.

Because of the joint efforts of countless people in the mathematical and industrial circles in the past, which laid the foundation for the start of life sciences, we have begun to have the ability to explore the more important existence of living organisms and truly return technology to human beings themselves.

The future belongs to life sciences. This is already a very clear path, and every small step we take now is building a big step for the future.

1 Elam JS, Essen DV. Human Connectome Project[J]. Springer New York, 2015.

2 Fischman, J. Reprieve for men: Y chromosome is not vanishing. Nature (2014). doi.org/10.1038/nature.

3 Mango SE. Generations of longevity[J]. Nature, 2011, 479(7373):p.302-303.

4 Koch L. Base editing takes a shot at disease in non-human primates[J]. Nature Reviews Genetics, 2021.

5 Loffredo FS, Steinhauser ML, Jay SM, et al. Growth differentiation factor 11 is a circulating factor that reverses age-related cardiac hypertrophy[J]. Cell, 2013, 153(4): 828-839.