On October 30, Professor Zheng Peng, of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Nanjing University, gave students from the top-ranking classes a lecture on “Biomacromolecules.” Because he had graduated in 2008 from the Kuang Yaming Honors School, he began by sharing his deep feelings for his alma mater, and he sincerely hoped that the students cherish their time and actively adapt to their university life.
At the beginning of the lecture, Zheng raised a question, “What is science?” or “What is not science?” The students felt that the answer was at the tip of the tongue, but they could not say it clearly. Science, Zheng explained, is an orderly system of knowledge based on testable explanation and prediction of the form and composition of objective things. Religion is not science, nor are any humanities in a narrow definition. Then he introduced the history of the university, the major place of scientific research. According to him, there was a qualitative leap from the medieval university to the first modern university founded by Humboldt in modern Germany.
After the introduction of this history, Professor Zheng asked “What are biomacromolecules?” That was the topic: biological macro-molecules. He stepped down the podium and joined the students for closer interaction. The students did give quite a few excellent answers: protein, nucleic acid, polysaccharide, and lipid. Zheng kept asking questions, “Why is blood red?” “What animal's blood is blue?” “What is the function of blood?” He was pleased that many students shared their answers. Starting from the hemoglobin, Zheng also shared daily-life examples such as the collagen, frequently watched from advertisements, three kinds of photosensitive proteins in our eyes, and muscle proteins in our bodies. In such a close-to-life tone, Zheng made the lecture much easier for the beginners.
Then, Zheng continued by introducing the history of the Nobel prizes awarded for discoveries in proteins. For the past over 100 years, more than 50 Nobel prizes have been awarded to the research on proteins or protein technology, from the study of the mechanisms of the proteins in cancers in 2018 to the protein mechanisms controlling circadian rhythm in 2017, and further to Thermo Fisher's first discovery of protein structures. These achievements were sufficient enough to show the importance of protein. Moreover, Zheng gave the familiar example of insulin, again, to show that protein not only has great market value, but also plays an important role in improving human health and well-being.
Next, Zheng said that the greatest discovery in the 20th century was to locate the DNA structures. As the most important substance in organisms, DNA has a two-meter-long strand in each cell, and after being tightly folded many times, it makes up a 0.09mm chromosome which is able to be directly observed under the microscope. The way that three nucleobases correspondent to one amino acid makes genetic information able to play an effective role.
Zheng talked about polysaccharides and lipids, with the examples of having IV drips when sick, taking receiving glucose supplement when having hypoglycemia, FDA’s suggestion on how many eggs one can eat a day, and the daily-life fat accumulation by drinking milk tea and other drinks. According to him, through computational simulations combined with genetic modification, protein structures can be changed as we need, such as changing the mechanical properties of muscle proteins to better serve our purposes.
This lecture offered the students a chance to exchange face-to-face with an alumnus of the Kuang Yaming Honors School and helped them grasp more on the topic of biological macromolecules in a close-to-life style and grow more interest in the research on proteins in the scope of life sciences.
