Research progress and development trend of life science in the 21st century

It is estimated that there are about 100,000 genes in human cells, and less than 5% have been clarified so far, so the discovery and elucidation of new genes related to important life activities and diseases will be an important task in the next few decades.

C. Cell biology

Wilson, a famous biologist, put forward a famous saying as early as the 1920s that "all the key problems in biology must be found in the cell", which still has deep connotations. Weissmann and Morgan have tried to establish a unified theory of heredity, development and evolution on the basis of cell research, although there was no specific way to find a solution, but the importance of knowledge about cells in the biological sciences is obvious. Cell is the basic unit of the structure and function of all life activities, cell biology is the science that studies the basic law of cell life activities, cell structure. Cell metabolism, cell heredity, cell proliferation and differentiation, cell information transmission and cell communication are the main research contents of cell biology. Although the content of cell biology research in the future is comprehensive, it may be summarized as two basic points: first, how genes and gene products control important life activities of cells, such as growth, proliferation, differentiation and aging, etc., which involves a new problem, how signals are transmitted inside and outside cells; The second is how the gene products-protein molecules and other biological molecules build and assemble into the structure of the cell and carry out the ordered life activities of the cell.

In the next 20 years and more, important progress and breakthroughs are expected on the following issues:

① The structure and function of chromosome, the main executor of the storage, replication and expression of genetic information, may be clarified at different structural levels.

② The study of cytoskeleton (including nuclear skeleton and chromosome skeleton) will get all-round progress.

The combination of cell biology with molecular biology and genetics will make important breakthroughs in the study of cell differentiation mechanism and lay the foundation for the rapid development of developmental biology.

The mechanism of cell senescence and programmed cell death will be clarified at a deeper level.

With cell molecular biology as the backbone discipline combined with other disciplines, the ideal of artificial assembly of living bodies may be gradually realized.

D. Developmental biology

How to develop from a fertilized egg into a structurally and functionally complex individual through cell division and differentiation is a major subject in life science and developmental biology that has not been solved so far. In recent decades, breakthrough achievements and knowledge accumulation in molecular biology, genetics and cell biology have created conditions for solving this major topic, which is the reason for the rapid development of developmental biology in the future.

The fundamental problem to be solved in developmental biology today is how the genes of cells selectively express specific proteins according to certain spatial and temporal relationships, thus controlling cell differentiation and ontogeny. Elucidating that genes control the development of embryos at multiple levels is not only a problem involving individual genes, but a series of regulatory genes in time and space, so as to control the development process. Although this is a very difficult subject, in recent years, it has begun to emerge and made breakthroughs. It is estimated that developmental biology will go further along this road in the future, and it is expected to achieve fruitful results.

E. Neuroscience (or brain science)

Neuroscience is the study of the structure and function of human and animal nervous system (mainly brain), at the molecular level, neural network level, overall level and even behavioral level to clarify the activity of the nervous system, especially the brain. The structure and function of the brain is a highly complex system containing 10, 11 cells. It is the basis of feeling, movement, learning, memory, emotion, behavior and thinking. How the brain cells guide human and animal behavior is one of the most promising and fascinating areas of future biology; The rise of neuroscience heralds another peak in the life sciences. Neuroscience or brain science is bound to contribute to the rise of cognitive and behavioral science in the next century. It is not unreasonable, therefore, for governments to invest heavily in this issue, including the US President's signature "naming January 1, 1990 as the Decade of the Brain".

Breakthroughs in neuroscience that could be heralded in the coming decades could include:

Elucidate the basis of learning, memory, and cognition at the molecular to behavioral levels;

(2) A series of genes and gene products related to memory and behavior will soon be discovered and clarified;

(3) The differentiation of nerve cells and the development of the nervous system have made great progress;

(4) The theoretical progress and breakthrough of brain function (such as pattern recognition, associative memory, and the explanation of thinking logic mechanism) will promote the development of a new generation of intelligent computers and intelligent robots;