Rao Yi once called Huada Gene Yang a "rogue entrepreneur" and was elected as a foreign academician of the American Academy of Sciences yesterday.

The following is taken from Rao Yi's blog:

I think Yang is an entrepreneur, because it seems that Huada Gene Company has been operating for many years, as if this enterprise is successful. Therefore, calling it an entrepreneur is a compliment, because in my dictionary, entrepreneurs are higher than businessmen. Of course, I don't say he is a scientist, and others will have different views on it, because everyone has different standards for what is a scientist. If you publish a paper, you are a scientist, then Yang is a scientist. If you do well in science, you are a scientist, but Yang is not. Different people have different views on what is a better science, but students may want to know that Yang's model is not universally recognized as a scientist. The DNA sequencing method was invented abroad, the instrument was made in America, and the reagent was made in America. Many people in the field of biology have their own opinions on whether sequencing is a good science with a lot of money from China and cheap labor from China. So, I'm afraid I'm not the only one who thinks Yang is not a scientist. However, it doesn't matter whether you are a scientist or not, and it doesn't matter whether you argue.

-The following is the original answer of 20 13-07-26-

I have no inside information, only the second point of the main question.

-Debate 2: China Congress will not only use other people's ideas for academic purposes? At the end of 20 12, Nature magazine selected the top ten influential people of the year *. Wang Jun, Executive Dean of Huada Gene, was selected.

Three years ago, there was an article about BGI gene in Nature magazine. In an interview with Nature, Wang Jun admitted that "we are muscles, but we have no brains". Personally, it takes a lot of confidence to say such a thing. They are ambitious. In 20 10, BGI purchased the 128 Hiseq2000 sequencer produced by Ilumina company. It is said that the catalog price of this instrument is $690,000 each. In 20 12 years, BGI spent 1. 1.8 billion dollars to acquire CompleteGenomics, a sequencing company competing with Ilumina.

From the point of view of pure scientific contribution, if Wang Jun really said in the "debate" quoted in the title, the work of sequencing diabetic micro-intestinal flora and cancer cells was done by them independently, he deserves to be regarded as an outstanding scientist. Single cell sequencing of cancer cells was published in the journal Cell. Look here and here. I haven't read the whole article, so it's difficult to judge the meaning of the work directly. However, judging from the author unit, the author unit of the communication is Huada Gene, and the first few in authors rank are BGI, except that one first author belongs to another unit. These two special units are hospitals, perhaps because they provide the source of cancer cells or some ideas, but I personally tend to judge that the main scientific contribution belongs to BGI. In the aforementioned report, Nature also emphasized that Huada Gene led their original work on 20 12, including these two cell articles.

The report in Nature quoted Professor George Mcdonaldchurch from Harvard University as saying, "The sequencing capacity of BGI accounted for 1% in the world in 1999, and now it has reached more than 50%". On Monday, BGI participated in publishing more than 65,438+000 papers, most of which were about Cell, Nature and Science. Nevertheless, Nature pointed out that the most important progress of BGI 20 12 is to turn genome scientific research into practical application. For example, in September, he signed a contract with the Gates Foundation.

Judging from their efforts, BGI may not be just a sequencing factory as many people thought before, but also has its own scientific dreams.

*:

The top ten figures selected by Nature were translated into "Top Ten Figures in Science in 20 12" in the news of BGI's official homepage, but in fact, the other nine figures selected at the same time were:

Rolf Dieter Heuer, chairman of the European Nuclear Research Committee, introduced the "God particle" to the world.

Cynthia Rosenzweig, co-chair of new york's Special Committee on Climate Change, is committed to protecting Gotham, new york, where she lives, from natural disasters.

Adam Staehl Zinner, an engineer from NASA, led the landing mission of Curiosity Rover.

Cedric Blampain, a professor at Brussels University, led a team to solve a long-standing controversial scientific problem and confirmed that cancer stem cells do exist.

Elizabeth Iorns, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Miami, suffered personal attacks and career setbacks because she confirmed the mistakes of a study by others.

Joe Handelsman, a microbiologist at Yale University, confirmed through her research that there is discrimination against female scientists regardless of gender.

Tim Gals, a mathematician at Cambridge University, launched an online boycott against Elsevier Publishing Group.

Bernardo Bernardinis, an Italian government official, was convicted of manslaughter because he thought seismologists failed to prevent earthquakes.

Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier, the author of a controversial paper on avian influenza, spent most of the year trying to publish these results. From this perspective, it is more appropriate to be regarded as "the top ten news figures".

Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize, and this person's recommendation is indispensable.

Tu Youyou won the prize thanks to Rao Yi's recommendation.

Why did Tu Youyou win the Nobel Prize, and Rao Yi's recommendation contributed a lot?

This is because, when the scientific community didn't know much about Tu Youyou, he did extraordinary science popularization work.

On August 22nd, 20 1 1, Rao Yi first published his achievements in discovering chemical molecules from traditional Chinese medicine in Tu Youyou and Zhang Tingdong, and then he and his collaborators published an article in China Science, describing the work of Tu Youyou and Zhang Tingdong, which was called a monument of traditional Chinese medicine research. When Tu Youyou was unknown in the scientific community, Rao Yi could "strongly recommend" him, which is why everyone praised him for his "vision".

Rao Yi's recommendation can be seen from one side.

20 1 1, Rao Yi was unsuccessful as an academician. In August 2007, 65438+ publicly stated that he would not choose academicians in the future. Five days later, he published a long article recommending Tu Youyou's contribution. At that time, he said in an interview with the media that he did this because "there have been some situations in my first identity recently, which caused unexpected concern." If possible, he hopes to take this opportunity to promote the attention of two senior scientists. "If we all strive to get them the Nobel Prize in Medicine in their lifetime, it will be the significance of the small events caused by my first identity through my second identity."

Who should be an academician in China today? After the article was published, Rao Yi made it clear to the media that he chose this title just to attract attention, and all he wanted to do was focus more people's attention on two senior scientists, Tu Youyou and Zhang Tingdong, hoping to push them to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The recommendation of the man who won the Tu Youyou Prize is indispensable.

Tu Youyou won the prize thanks to Rao Yi's recommendation.

Why did Tu Youyou win the Nobel Prize, and Rao Yi's recommendation contributed a lot?

This is because, when the scientific community didn't know much about Tu Youyou, he did extraordinary science popularization work.

On August 22nd, 20 1 1, Rao Yi first published his achievements in discovering chemical molecules from traditional Chinese medicine in Tu Youyou and Zhang Tingdong, and then he and his collaborators published an article in China Science, describing the work of Tu Youyou and Zhang Tingdong, which was called a monument of traditional Chinese medicine research. When Tu Youyou was unknown in the scientific community, Rao Yi could "strongly recommend" him, which is why everyone praised him for his "vision".

Rao Yi's recommendation can be seen from one side.

20 1 1, Rao Yi was unsuccessful as an academician. In August 2007, 65438+ publicly stated that he would not choose academicians in the future. Five days later, he published a long article recommending Tu Youyou's contribution. At that time, he said in an interview with the media that he did this because "there have been some situations in my first identity recently, which caused unexpected concern." If possible, he hopes to take this opportunity to promote the attention of two senior scientists. "If we all strive to get them the Nobel Prize in Medicine in their lifetime, it will be the significance of the small events caused by my first identity through my second identity."

Who should be an academician in China today? After the article was published, Rao Yi made it clear to the media that he chose this title just to attract attention, and all he wanted to do was focus more people's attention on two senior scientists, Tu Youyou and Zhang Tingdong, hoping to push them to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

How about the Institute of Life Sciences of Zhejiang University?

They are all awesome people, much better than other hospitals in Zhejiang University. Rao Yi seems to have strongly recommended it in his blog.