107/5000After being invited back to China as a member of the "Hundred Talents Program" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998, Ma Runlin won the National Outstanding Youth Fund in 2001, became a national candidate for the "New Century Hundreds and Thousands of Talents Project" in 2004, and received a special government allowance from the State Council in 2009. Today, Ma Runlin is a researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Scientific research requires a pleasant mood, a free and happy mental state to stimulate creativity." Enjoying the wonderful process of exploring scientific issues is the academic attitude of Ma Runlin, a scholar of the Chinese Academy of Sciences "Hundred Talents Project" and a researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

　　 Kind eyebrows are the first impression this scholar gave to reporters. He speaks slowly, his eyes are gentle and calm, even when he talks about unpleasant experiences, he doesn't show sullen expression.

　　 Ma Runlin specializes in "human and animal functional genomics", intending to discover more mysteries in the vast book of life. From time to time, he was contemplative and looking up, he expected his academic achievements to benefit the public.

　　 create a free atmosphere

　　 "I'm here basically 7 days a week. After eating, I will continue to experiment." Ma Runlin's doctoral student Li Yongchao said. For many members of this team, scientific research and life are inseparable. They often stay in the laboratory all day, and continue to do experiments after dinner is as natural as people watching TV at night.

　　The hard work of scientific research can be imagined, but Ma Runlin hopes to create a free and pleasant academic atmosphere for the team.

　　 "I have been studying and working in the United States for many years. What impresses me very much is that most of the scientific researchers there have exchanges, equal exchanges, smooth information, and individuals can be fully respected." Ma Runlin told a reporter from China Science News.

　　 He doesn't like to be an elder in front of students, and prefers to communicate with them on an equal footing. He talked to students more than once that if students can continue to pay attention to a certain issue for several months, then it is likely that the teacher's understanding of the details of the issue is not as good as the student's, and he needs to ask the student for advice.

　　 Despite his busy schedule, Ma Runlin tried his best to take time to interact with the students, and created a separate folder for each student, and saved the research materials and email interaction information related to the students in different categories to facilitate more effective teacher-student communication.

　　 He also specially invited several young students in the team for interviews. In his view, today's scientific researchers not only need to be academically sound, but their language skills also affect how far they can go in scientific research. He hopes that in a free and equal scientific research environment, team members can develop in all directions.

　　 During the interview, the reporter could feel that Ma Runlin was happy for the students' progress.

　　 For scientific research, the other side of freedom and creativity is rigorous academic training. Ma Runlin admitted that the accumulation of science and technology in developed countries in Europe and the United States is temporarily difficult for my country to surpass. It has only been 100 years since modern science has appeared in China. He hopes to pass on to his students the academic methods he has learned in the West, so that their free creation can obtain a solid foundation for academic training.

　　 Strive for quality results

　　 In fact, Ma Runlin's academic starting point was not high when he was young. Unlike many scholars who wrote well in the future who graduated from prestigious universities such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, Ma Runlin studied at the unknown Shihezi University at the time.

With a strong interest in scientific research and a tenacity to study hard, Ma Runlin won the competition for public study opportunities. He studied at the University of Minnesota, Kansas State University, and finally completed postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois (UIUC) and stayed on as a faculty member. .

He has successively published more than 50 SCI research papers in international academic journals such as "Science". In 2012, he served as an honorary professor of Massey University in New Zealand. In 2013, he was invited to become an international member of the New Zealand National Developmental Biology Research Center Gravida. Invited by the center are all internationally renowned scholars.

　　 Since joining the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Genetics and Development, Ma Runlin's team is gradually entering the international advanced ranks.

Based on the successful construction of a genome-wide bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library of humans, mice, domestic pigs, sheep, grass carp, citrus, millet, trichomoniasis, anaerobic fungi, etc., Ma Runlin’s team discovered a The phenomenon of gene recombination that does not depend on recombinase A at a higher frequency under stress conditions.

The team successfully mapped the high-density BAC physical map of the Chinese Merino sheep MHC segment, completed the DNA sequence map of the MHC segment, and constructed the physical map of the sheep MHC autosomal insert. Currently, it is studying MHC in depth through comparative genomics Evolution in mammals and ruminants.

Through Gene Knockout of homologous recombination, Ma Runlin’s laboratory successfully cultivated two target gene knockout mouse models. One model (Rcn3) of KO mice was due to breathing within 30 minutes after birth. Lung function failed and died of hypoxia.

　　 Preliminary analysis showed that the secretion of alveolar surfactants SP-A and SP-C is affected, and it may be related to the abnormal development of the lung mesenchymal cells. This model is a new neonatal respiratory failure model. The exact molecular mechanism leading to the death of KO mice is still being explored.

　　 In addition, the team is also studying the function of the essential maternal factor gene MATER for embryos, using various techniques to study the exact function and regulation of the MATER gene and alternative splicing bodies.

　　 In the past 5 years, Ma Runlin’s team has published more than 20 research papers in internationally renowned academic journals, which have been recognized by industry authorities.

　　Research does not forget the application

　　You may ask, what does the above research have to do with our lives?

　　Take the above-mentioned gene knockout mouse model study as an example. Researchers hope to find the genomic cause of lung insufficiency in newborn mice, that is to say, which gene or gene mutation makes the newly born mice unable to breathe normally?

　　 Since the mouse is an important model for preclinical experiments, this research will help understand the internal mechanism of human neonatal lung dysfunction, so as to help people avoid or solve this problem and make babies healthier.

　　 In fact, Ma Runlin has never separated basic research from practical applications. Instead, as his scientific achievements increase, he has become more interested in clinical applications.

　　 "When more and more academic papers are published, I will ask myself, do I continue to do this, or go a step further and transform these results into applications?" Ma Runlin said.

　　 So, pushing scientific discoveries into clinical applications became a major theme of Ma Runlin's second half of life.

　　Because genomics, as an effective research tool, has the characteristics of "all-rounder", this provides Ma Runlin with more possibilities for flowering.

　　 For example, in the years since he returned to China, he has been committed to promoting the industrialization of a new type of cervical cancer preventive vaccine. Later, although he withdrew from the management work due to various reasons, he still did not give up the exploration in this field.

　　 Ma Runlin is also paying attention to the scientific problems faced by domestic large animal industrialization under the initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is promoting animal genomics to produce practical benefits for the animal husbandry industry. In short, he hopes that his research can make people healthier and bring more benefits to related industries.

　　 Last year, breakthroughs were made in part of the “Major Special Project for the Breeding of New Transgenic Sheep Varieties of the Ministry of Agriculture”, and the first transgenic manual cloned sheep and domestic pigs rich in Omega-3 were born. Ma Runlin is the person in charge of the project.

　　 They are not just newly cloned animals. Ma Runlin's team went a step further: "spliced" a piece of gene in the cell nucleus, hoping that the cloned animal could synthesize an unsaturated fatty acid-Omega-3.

　　Omega-3 is an essential nutrient for the human body. If the intake is insufficient, the incidence of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, etc. will increase. For a long time, humans have tried to supplement the Omega-3 they need through foods such as deep-sea fish oil. However, overfishing of deep-sea fish may adversely affect the marine ecological balance.

　　 Researchers in Ma Runlin’s laboratory synthesized Omega-3 gene fragments, modified it to be suitable for mammalian expression, and then transferred them to the sheep genome. In fact, the research was carried out many years before the national project was issued.

　　 Ma Runlin hopes that in the foreseeable future, people will no longer rely on the expensive deep-sea fish oil, but eat lamb and pork, and consume Omega-3.