Lancet专访曹雪涛院士:中国正在进行医学研究改革
2013-06-11 MedSci MedSci原创
世界上没有多少事物的发展速度能比中国的发展更迅猛惊人,曹雪涛(Xuetao Cao)的事业进程或许就是其中之一。28岁成为中国最年轻的医学教授,40岁时成为第二军医大学(SMMU)的副校长。仅一年之后,2005年,他当选 中国最年轻的工程院院士。现在,作为中国医学科学院(CAMS)的院长,他没有显示出脚步放缓的迹象。曹雪涛说,他雄心勃勃地期望能够让中国的生物医学研 究方式发生翻天覆地的改变
世界上没有多少事物的发展速度能比中国的发展更迅猛惊人,曹雪涛(Xuetao Cao)的事业进程或许就是其中之一。28岁成为中国最年轻的医学教授,40岁时成为第二军医大学(SMMU)的副校长。仅一年之后,2005年,他当选 中国最年轻的工程院院士。现在,作为中国医学科学院(CAMS)的院长,他没有显示出脚步放缓的迹象。曹雪涛说,他雄心勃勃地期望能够让中国的生物医学研 究方式发生翻天覆地的改变,此外他的另一个愿景就是希望作为一位著名免疫学家,能够继续在研究中取得丰硕的成果。
这或许并不奇怪,当《柳叶刀》(The Lancet)采访曹雪涛时,他表示已有2年时间没放过假了;曹雪涛强烈的职业责任感部分程度上可以归因于他是个山东人。曹雪涛说:“作为孔子的诞生地, 在山东人们非常重视孩子的教育。”他的父母当然也是如此。即便他们不能想象,不仅仅是由于在中国曾经所做的一切,他们儿子的学术追求能够将自身带至多远的地方。
在中国许多的研究人员选择出国来继续发展自己的事业,但曹雪涛却有自己的想法。在经过近9年的学习后,曹雪涛先在第二军医大学度过了他的本科生涯,后又取得了癌症免疫治疗的博士学位,他用了近一年的时间来争取经费及机构支持,建立自己的实验室。他的举动在当时可以说是非常少见的。他出售了自己实验室的一些 知识产权的使用权,利用这些收入来扩建了一栋新的专用大楼。2006年,曹雪涛已被任命为第二军医大学的副校长,此时他所掌控的机构已从原来一个房间的学 术部变为了中国的医学免疫学国家重点实验室。
世界级的研究、卓越的组织能力和领导才能,曹雪涛所具备的这些能力为他赢得了众多的支持者,荣誉和职务接踵而至。2010年,来自中国卫生部部长陈竺的一 个电话对于他而言却具有特别重要的意义。陈竺当时在进行中国卫生系统改革,他希望曹雪涛能够并行开展工作,通过中国医学科学院来改革国家管理生物医学研究 的方式:中国医学科学院是目前中国唯一的国家级医学研究机构。仿照前苏联的研究院体系,中国医学科学院没有有效地设立科研资金,推动研究。曹雪涛说:“陈竺希望能够改革中国医学科学院,使其进入到一个现代的体系中,就像美国的国立卫生研究院一样。”
陈竺聘用曹雪涛正是在一个最佳的时机。已经确立了自己是中国非常杰出的免疫学家,2006年当选为中国免疫协会理事长,曹雪涛开始思考他还能为生物医学研究团体做出哪些更多的贡献。同时,多次出国经历让他认识到国内体系制度的局限性。他说:“我是一个例外,我非常的幸运。但是许多新一代的科学家没有出头的 机会。为了推动中国生物医学研究的发展,需要采用新的办法。williamhill asia 希望能够在国家范围内为医学科学家、内科医生、临床医生建立起新的机制,给予他们良好的环 境去获取经费,去发展,为他们提供参与国际合作的平台。我认为担任中国医学科学院院长,有利于我实现这一理想。因此在陈部长的鼓励下,我于2011年来到了北京。”
曹雪涛所制定策略的第一部分已初具规模。在《柳叶刀》采访的前一天,曹雪涛出席了中国医学科学院一个新神经科学中心的开幕仪式,未来几年许多新的专科中心 将在全国建立。或许更为重要的是,曹雪涛希望能够将许多在海外工作的中国研究人员吸引回来,让他们在这些新的研究所任职。哈佛大学干细胞和再生生物学系博 士后工作人员郭正红(Zhenhong Guo,音译)就是其中之一。郭正红是曹雪涛的博士生,她认为曹雪涛对于中国制度的感受,使得他成为了率先开展改革的理想人选。“他有很强的历史使命感, 推动中国的科学研究进入更高的水平。他深刻地了解在开始职业生涯之时你可能面临的困难,这就是他专注于为年轻一代建立更好的环境,提供更多支持的原因,他 将更多的精力放在了优化科研环境上,他有信心吸引年轻的有才华的科学家回到中国,确保他们能够成功地发展事业。”
改革一个已持续存在了数十年的体系是一个曹雪涛不敢低估的挑战。“我想与西方机构展开合作,向他们学习,我不能将西方的体制照搬到中国来,我也不能在中国 继续延续旧的体系。我必须找到一条新的路。”看起来曹雪涛正在享受这一挑战。“如果williamhill asia 想做出一些与众不同的事情,williamhill asia 就应该勇于面对新的挑战,”他说。
原始出处:
Xuetao Cao: reforming medical research in China
There aren't many things in the world more
astonishingly rapid than China's development, but the blistering pace of
Xuetao Cao's career might be one of them. At the age of 28 he became
the youngest medical professor in China, and at just 40 he was made Vice
President of the Second Military Medical University (SMMU) in Shanghai.
A year later, in 2005, he was elected as the youngest member of the
Chinese Academy of Engineering. Now, as President of the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
(CAMS), he shows no signs of slowing down. Cao's ambition is, he says,
to achieve a sea change in the way biomedical research is done in China;
a vision he intends to realise at the same time as continuing his
prolific work as a renowned immunologist.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had not had a holiday in 2 years when The Lancet
spoke to him; a prodigious work ethic that Cao attributes at least
partly to his upbringing in China's eastern Shandong province. The
birthplace of Confucius, Shandong is a place where “local people pay
much attention to the education of their children”, says Cao, and his
parents were certainly no different. Still, even they couldn't have
imagined how far and how fast their son's academic pursuits would take
him, not least because he did it all in China.
Many
researchers in China move abroad to further their careers, but Cao had
other ideas. After studying for 9 years, first as an undergraduate and
then for his PhD in cancer immunotherapy at SMMU, he spent almost a year
negotiating the financial and institutional backing to set up his own
laboratory. In a move that he says was unique at the time, he was able
to sell the rights to some of the intellectual property generated by his
laboratory and used the proceeds to expand to a new, purpose-built
building. In 2006, by which time Cao had already been appointed Vice
President of SMMU, he found himself at the helm of an enterprise that
had gone from being a one-room academic department to China's National
Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology.
Cao's
ability to mix world-class research with deft organisational skills and
a talent for leadership won him many admirers, but among the accolades
and appointments that came his way, one phone call would prove
particularly crucial. It was from Chen Zhu, who at that time, in 2010,
was China's Minister of Health. Chen was embroiled in reforming the
Chinese health system, and appealed to Cao to take charge of a parallel
effort to reform the way the country administered biomedical research
through the CAMS: the only national level medical research organisation
in China. Modelled on the old academy system of the former USSR, CAMS
was not set up to effectively fund and promote research, Cao explains,
and “Chen wanted to reorganise it into a modern system, one more like
the US National Institutes of Health”.
{nextpage}
Chen's
efforts to recruit Cao were perfectly timed. Having established himself
as China's pre-eminent immunologist—he was elected President of the Chinese Society for Immunology
in 2006—Cao had increasingly come to ask himself what more he could
contribute to the biomedical research community. At the same time, his
many trips abroad had opened his eyes to the limitations of the domestic
system. “I was an exceptional case and very lucky”, he says, “but most
of the young generation of scientists have no chance to emerge”. To
encourage the development of biomedical research in China, Cao explains,
a new approach is required. “We need to create new mechanisms at the
national level for medical scientists, for physicians, for clinicians,
to give them a favourable environment to get funded, to develop, to
provide a platform for them to be involved in international
collaboration”, he says. “I thought that being President of the CAMS was
a good position for me to realise that dream”, he recalls, “so after
being inspired by the Minister in 2010, I moved to Beijing in 2011”.
The
first part of Cao's strategy is already taking shape. The day before we
spoke, he attended the opening of a new CAMS centre for neuroscience,
and in the coming years scores of new specialist centres will be
established across the country. Perhaps more importantly, Cao hopes to
coax back many of the Chinese researchers who are working abroad to
staff these new institutes. One of those already heading back is
Zhenhong Guo, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Department of Stem
Cell and Regenerative Biology. Guo was a PhD student of Cao's until
2005, and according to her, Cao's experience of the Chinese system makes
him the ideal man for the reforms ahead. “He has a very strong sense of
historical mission to push China's scientific research to a higher
level”, she explains. “He understands deeply what difficulties you might
face if you start your career there; that is why he is focusing on
creating a better environment and providing more support to the young
generation, putting more efforts into optimising the scientific research
environment so that he has the confidence to attract young talented
scientists back to China, and make sure they can develop their careers
successfully.”
Transforming a system that
has persisted for decades is a challenge that Cao is not
underestimating. “I want to collaborate with western institutes, learn
from them, but I cannot copy the western system to China, and I also
cannot continue the old system in China”, he explains; “I have to find a
new way”. And it's a challenge that he seems to be relishing: “As
people we should face new challenges head on if we want to do something
different”, he says.
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