Invitation for Competition in the Forefront of Life Sciences

2007年-12月-25日来源：MEBO

Since the publication of my “Announcement¾For the Dignity of Life Sciences” in Guangming Daily and on Chinanews.Com on December 3, 2007 and the opening of my personal blog on Sina.Com.Cn, within 20 days, there has been a tremendous impact generated internationally and domestically. In contrast to their high profile promotions of the iPS cells as being a landmark achievement of life sciences earlier, Nature and Science magazines have recently reevaluated the iPS cells and downgraded them as being just a wish for future clinical applications.

Today, on this Christmas day, we send our invitations to our peers in life science research allover the world: based on a series of research results obtained in our applications of stem cells to humans, I and my scientific research team would like to invite you to a challenge competition! We intend to use this challenge competition to urge more researchers to hasten your steps into the field of stem cell applications, and to follow the paths to success blazed by our team in order to obtain more fruitful results in the applications of stem cells for the benefit of all mankind, as well as to ensure a purer research environment and the safety of human lives. The judging criteria of this competition are the standard commonly used in the Food and Drug Administrations (FDAs) allover the world: “Safety and Efficacy.” Life sciences researchers in the world, let us get rid of all hypothetical theories, fantasies and wishful thinking and participate in this grand competition for the safe and efficacious applications of stem cells to humans.

The endless research on human health has begun since 2500 years ago when life sciences were first applied to medicine in the world. Also since 2500 years ago the Chinese has established the medical philosophy and systems based on the concept of “unity of nature and human,” which enabled the expansion of the Chinese population to become the largest one in the world. Just based on the size of human population in China, this demonstrated the contribution of Chinese medicine. Created by Chinese people, Chinese medicine is a good example of ethnical medicine created by people in the world. And just like Chinese medicine, other ethnical medicine also ensured the health of their people.

Western medicine, established by ancient Greeks, enabled the progression of the Western countries and modern Western medicine, and benefited all human beings. In the middle of the nineteenth century, microscopes were invented by Western scientists, by which cells were discovered, thereby opening the door to the development of modern life sciences. In the last 150 years, scientific researchers have conducted extensive research on the vital rules of cells and on cellular components, which expanded our understanding of life from simple development of human body to certain substances that compose life, and led to many scientific achievements. All of these achievements are historical records that demonstrated the tireless efforts made by our humans in life science research, and will forever inspire people to continue to explore the mysteries of the human body so as to live a longer and healthier life.

However, the mysteries of the human body cannot be completely solved by the efforts of just one or a few generations. By a popular analogy, the smallest unit that composes life is a “cell.” But what is a “cell?” A “cell” is just like the universe that no one has been able to understand completely or explain clearly. Based on the basic composition of human life, only after the cell is completely understood can one solve the mystery of life. Thus, our humans had started to explore the cell since 150 years ago. In sum, there are two approaches in the research and exploration of the life of a cell: one is the search for the rules of natural growth and characteristics of cells, which, similar to the exploration of the space, allows humans to harness life by mastering the vital rules of the cells to ensure the safety of human lives; and the other is the search for the substances that the cell is composed of, which, similar to archaeology and analysis of the element, is a research on the rules of cell growth and cellular characteristics by studying the cellular components so as to achieve the purpose of controlling life by humans. Therefore, since these two approaches share the same goal, in the process of research and exploration researchers taking these different approaches should promote each other, support each other and encourage each other! If this is purely for the scientific research, there should not be any dispute. However, we found that our research ideas have been borrowed but omitted from the citations in the publications by others in the scientific community. Thus, we have squeezed out some time in the midst of our hectic scientific research to initiate this challenge competition so as to restore purity to the scientific research community. Only through this effort can the safety of mankind be protected.

“Stem cell” has been a term known quite early in the medical community. However, with the modifier “embryonic” added to it since 1998, this term has now almost become a household name thanks to the fanfare made by the scientific journals worldwide and by the mass media. But how many people in the public truly understand the meaning of “stem cell?” Just like the universe, life’s smallest unit, the cell, including its nature and the rules it follows, has not been totally understood. Although many modern research tools have been developed, the cell remains a mystery. There have been some scientific fiction-like blue prints presented. Although a sci-fi blue print can be a meaningful process in scientific research, this should be limited to the field of scientific exploration. Before any real results that are truly applicable to humans are obtained, it is inappropriate to represent to the public such a sci-fi blue print as a reality, because the public are not trained scientific researchers, they are not capable of telling which part is a fantasy and which part is a real result.

Now the research teams from Japan and the US claim that their iPS cell research has established a new landmark of life sciences. However, by doing their “landmark” research they have stepped onto the path we blazed much earlier which has led to our discovery of the fact that human somatic cells possess regenerative potentials and can be induced to become stem cells by using appropriate substances. And we have made it a reality in the clinical practice! So far people have not solved the mysteries of the life of a cell, let alone a stem cell. If there were no potential naturally possessed by the cell itself there is no way one could “fabricate” a stem cell. It is far from easy to figure out how a new life could be made. As such, we set up this forum for a challenge competition in the forefront of life sciences and invite all of our peers in the field to join us in this competition for the applications of life sciences for the well being of mankind. We believe that scientists allover the world will join us in these endeavors, because this is for the common interests of the human being.

We are just a small research team made of Chinese people. Although we do not have as much power, we still decide to set up this forum to invite our peers to the first challenge competition in life sciences, and the contest is for the result of “converting human skin cells into stem cells” claimed by the teams from Japan and the US. We chose to participate in the contest with our technology of conversion of adult skin cells into stem cells in situ and regeneration of the skin organ on the wounds in situ and in vivo. Our technologies have been used in the clinic in the treatment of at least 20 millions patients and approved by the FDAs of 23 countries. We sincerely hope that researches in the scientific community worldwide will accept our invitation to this challenge competition. We especially hope that the Japanese and US research teams on the iPS cells will join this competition with us first. The platform for this challenge competition has established initially at the website of m.327512.com, either in Chinese, English, or other languages.

Our invitation will be announced in the mainstream media in various countries of the world!