Changjiang Daily Wuhan Client, June 14 (Reporter Wang Yang) "Hello, Academician Yan Ning, I have a question to ask you..." "Call me Teacher Yan Ning." On the morning of the 13th, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Yan Ning was invited to give an academic lecture at Wuhan University. During the student question session, she interrupted the students with a smile and "corrected" the students' names for her. This small gesture made all the teachers and students present laugh, and the academic exchange was carried out in a relaxed and lively atmosphere.
Yan Ning, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to give an academic lecture at Wuhan University. Photo by reporter Wang Yang
Yan Ning is known as "the most watched female scientist today". In November 2023, Yan Ning was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2024, she won the "World Outstanding Female Scientist Achievement Award".
The lecture hall on the second floor of the School of Life Sciences of Wuhan University was full. Students from the School of Life Sciences, School of Computer Science, School of Medicine, and even the School of Liberal Arts came to listen to the lecture. Many students could only stand, crowded in the aisles, and even People were sitting on the floor in the open space under the podium, and the door was blocked. The students took out their mobile phones to take photos and showed their sincere respect for the scientists.
Li Guohong, dean of the School of Life Sciences at Wuhan University, introduced that as early as 2007, when Teacher Yan Ning returned to Tsinghua University to establish his own laboratory, he set a research goal to analyze a total of 19 ions in eukaryotic voltage-gated sodium and calcium channels. The crystal structure of the channel was considered an almost impossible goal at the time. "It is very difficult to analyze the structure of membrane proteins. There was no breakthrough in cryo-electron microscopy technology at that time. Yan Ning needed great courage to make this choice. According to the technical means at the time, it might take 50 years of hard work to accomplish this goal."
Speaking of this, Teacher Yan Ning on the side kept nodding. She said that Tsinghua University’s slogan is “Strive to work for the health of the motherland for at least fifty years.” In her opinion, the most important thing in doing scientific research is to be driven by curiosity, just like leveling up and fighting monsters when playing a game. Because it is something that comes completely from the heart, it does not feel painful, and she even enjoys the process of scientific research and making it. It’s even more of a sense of accomplishment. "And if a lot of external things are imposed, and scientific research work is alienated by publishing articles or some talent hats, when scientific research is no longer driven by curiosity, it may become more and more painful."
According to reports, Professor Yan Ning For the first time in the world, the atomic resolution structures of a series of transmembrane proteins with important physiological and pathological significance, such as human glucose transporters, eukaryotic voltage-gated sodium ion channels and calcium ion channels, were revealed, providing a basis for understanding the pathogenesis and pathogenesis of related diseases. Provides the molecular basis for drug development. Currently, she is mainly engaged in research on the pathogenesis of pain and drug development. When
was communicating with students, one student asked her how to keep up with academic research hot spots and not fall behind? In this regard, Yan Ning gave pertinent advice: "Don't chase the so-called academic research hot spots. I have been a doctoral student for more than 20 years and found that there are hot spots every year. If you find hot spots and pounce on them, it will be very difficult. It will be eliminated soon." Yan Ning told everyone that many researches were only known after technological breakthroughs and became hot spots. Instead of chasing hot spots, it is better to jump out of hot spots, be interest-driven, and use the "four aspects" as the starting point to find scientific research directions.
[Editor: Wang Rongfei]
[Source: Changjiang Daily-Changjiang Net]
