On the afternoon of September 17th, Professor Thomas C. Südhof, the 2013 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, gave a lecture titled “Neurology and Life Health: My Research Journey and Prospects”, as part of the activity of “Nobel Laureates Walking into HZAU” to celebrate its 120th Anniversary. Professor Gao Chi, Secretary of the School Party Committee, delivered a welcome and presented the letter of appointment of HAZU honorary professorship to Südhof, and Vice President Qing Ping presided over the ceremony.

Professor Südhof, an academician of the National Academy of Sciences and professor of molecule and cell physiology of Leland Stanford University, is mainly engaged in the research on the molecule mechanism of the release of neurotransmitters. He discovered the key proteins regulating the release of neurotransmitters in vesicles and its mechanism of action, for which he won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. In the lecture, Professor Südhof shared his educational, research and academic experiences, presented his research achievements in the neurotransmitter release mechanism over the past decades and his current research interest in an accessible way.

Then he introduced the major challenges against neuroscience research – explaining the pathology of and developing effective treatments for brain diseases. In addition, taking the treatment and development of Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis as examples, Professor Südhof proposed that basic research on the pathogenesis of brain diseases is the premise of and the key to exploring effective therapeutic drugs and treatments. He also stressed the importance of basic research in the transformational research.

In his closing remarks, He spoke of the research trend and prospects of drugs for brain diseases. “New technologies in stem cell biology, genomics, transcriptomics, and structural biology have revolutionized bio-medical research, and all of these technologies are based on basic research”, he said. “To meet the challenges in research and development of brain disease treatments requires profound knowledge of disease biology rather than sheer luck.” With that said, he emphasized the great importance of basic research again.

Professor Südhof is the second Nobel Laureate coming into HZAU. Following the principle of “academy-oriented” anniversary celebration, HZAU has to date held more than 500 academic activities and invited 2 Nobel Laureates and more than 40 academicians from home and abroad for academic exchanges, which is a true reflection that the 120th anniversary is celebrated with high-quality academic activities, hence steering the university towards world-class disciplines and high-quality development. The university will also hold international forums on higher agricultural education during the anniversary, in which dozens of Chinese and foreign university presidents, Nobel Laureates and academicians have been invited to participate.

Source：http://m.hzau.edu.cn/article/8833

Translated by Zhang Qin

Supervised by Zeng Wenhua