In the afternoon of December 8th, Principal Investigator Dr. Fei Sun, from the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered an online lecture themed “Structure of Living Systems” to students of the Kuang Yaming Honors School.

Dr. Sun demonstrated the wonder of life by starting with the Chinese Holstein cattle. He then introduced subjects in biological research, the ultimate problem of life sciences, comparisons between life and non-life, etc.

In the second part of the lecture, Dr. Sun discussed “What is Life?” which Erwin Schrödinger, the famous physicist, once thought deeply about from the perspective of physics in the 20th century. His answer was chromosomes, also called Maxwell’s demons, which aroused many scientists’ interest in studying life science.

In the third part, Dr. Sun introduced the fundamental characteristics of living systems, including the crucial elements of living systems, the hierarchical structure of living systems, the hierarchical structure of cells, and the four levels of living systems. He summarized the law of life as “life = matter + information”.

In the end, Dr. Sun introduced the frontiers of biological research, including protein technology, virus-related research, bioimaging, etc. His lecture deepened the students’ understanding of life science and increased their enthusiasm for biological research.