What was the life of Tong Dizhou, the "pioneer of cloning" who caused a sensation in the world?

Tong Dizhou is the main founder of experimental embryology in China. 1902 On May 28th, Zhang was born in a remote mountain village in Yinxian County, Zhejiang Province. His mother is a farmer and his father teaches in a private school. Xiao Zhouzi learned to read with his father since childhood, and read traditional textbooks, such as The Amethyst and Poems of a Child prodigy. He was gifted and intelligent, and soon showed his outstanding talent among school children.

Zhou Xiao is very curious. His eyes are in charge of everything, and his mouth is good at asking questions. One day between classes, he and other pupils played games on the stone steps under the eaves. When they found a pile of bare, round and wet pits on the slate, they suddenly thought, "Who carved this?" What is it used for? " He didn't understand, so he asked his father when he came home from school. His father smiled and replied, "These pits were not dug by people, but dripped from the eaves!" " Zhou Xiao cocked his head in disbelief: "Water drops on the eaves won't hurt people's faces and hands. How can such a hard slate fall into the pit? " The father thought that his son would think with his head, so he squatted down and pointed to those small pits and patiently explained, "Of course, a drop of water can't knock out the pit, but if you keep dripping for many years, you can not only fill the pit, but also drip through the stone!" There is an idiom called' dripping water wears away a stone'. In fact, many things in the world are like this, and so is reading. The knowledge in the stomach of college counselors is also accumulated bit by bit, one word at a time, one book at a time! One day for two days, one year for two years, after many years, I naturally became a scholar! Zhou Xiao nodded seriously: "Dad, I want to read one book at a time, read thousands of books and become a scholar." . The father stroked his son's head happily and encouraged him to say, "Well done! Men should have this ambition! "

The circumference of Xiao Di is bigger. Like all the farm children in the village, he is hardworking and sensible. After school, he often helps his family feed pigs and do farm work.

/kloc-when he was 0/4 years old, his father died of illness. In the first week, he took the place of his father as a teacher Xiao to teach children. "Learning is not enough, but teaching is difficult." In the first week, when I became a teacher, I felt that my knowledge was limited, so I hoped to read more books. Later, I was admitted to Ningbo No.4 Normal University, and my room and board were free. Because the original foundation was too poor, he couldn't keep up. Although he got up early, he studied hard. His average score in the first semester was only 45. According to the regulations, he must drop out of school or repeat a grade. He repeatedly begged the headmaster, and the school saw that he was sincere and could study hard, so he reluctantly agreed to take his class for a semester.

Since then, he has been with the "street lamp", and it is dawn. He reads a foreign language under the street lamp; After turning off the lights at night, he learns to review himself under the street lamp. Many things happen. At the end of the term, his average score reached more than 70, and he also got 100 in geometry. This incident made him realize a truth: I can do what others can do through hard work. There is no genius in the world, genius is bought with labor. After that, it became his motto.

65438-0922, Tong Dizhou was admitted to Fudan University to study psychology. Tong Dizhou's teacher Guo Renyuan is an American student. He made outstanding contributions to psychology, that is, he broke the once popular "animal instinct theory". For example, why do cats eat mice? At that time, the international popular view was that it was instinct for cats to eat mice. Guo Renyuan objected to this. He overthrew the idealistic theory of "instinct" with a series of experiments, proving that cats eat mice not by nature, but by nurture. The test method is to keep cats and mice together from an early age. They do not commit crimes. When the cat is older, sometimes it wants to offend the mouse, and a small "power grid" will be installed in the meantime. Cats will get an electric shock if they stretch their paws, and their paws will retract immediately. After a period of time, the "power grid" was removed, and the cat never touched the mouse again, and everything was fine. This experiment proves that the cat didn't want to eat mice when it was born in its mother's stomach, but it just learned later. Through this experiment, Tong Dizhou was reminded that everything should be done through experiments, which broke the previous theory. This is an unforgettable lesson he got from Guo Renyuan.

1927 After graduation, I worked as a biology assistant in Central University. 65438-0930, studying in Bijing University, Belgium. In Belgium, Tong Dizhou has made greater progress in his studies. Especially in the research of experimental embryology, a series of achievements have been made. Professor Brasay, Tong Dizhou's teacher, is an internationally renowned biologist. He repeatedly gave a thumbs-up and said, "Boy, that's good." What my colleagues admire most is that Tong Dizhou completed an operation to peel frog egg membrane. This seemingly simple operation was a great thing at that time. During the operation, the frog eggs should be taken out first, and the outer membrane of the frog eggs should be carefully peeled off under the operating mirror. The operation is very difficult. Professor Brasai, Tong Dizhou's teacher, failed for several years, but Tong Dizhou did it. Professor Brasay said happily, "Tong is a careful and meticulous first-class scientist." Tong Dizhou was greatly encouraged by the success of this incident. He said, "This makes me believe that China people are not more stupid than foreigners. China people can also do things that foreigners think are difficult to do. "

After receiving his doctorate, Tong Dizhou returned to the motherland. At that time, China was faced with national disaster, raging fire, poverty and famine. No one attaches importance to science and technology, and no one supports scientific experiments. Under such extremely difficult conditions, Tong Dizhou continued his biological science research. After the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Tong Dizhou moved around with the school and finally came to a small town in Sichuan.

In the wartime, in a rural town with very poor material conditions, it is difficult for students sitting in the classroom today to carry out some scientific research work. People in small towns never know what electricity is. There is no electricity, no lights, and the room is dark. How can we carry out scientific experiments? Tong Dizhou said to his colleagues and students, "Without electric lights, we can work in the outdoor yard. With the help of natural light, we can still observe and experiment under the microscope."

Under such conditions and environment, scientists began their research. At this time, Tong Dizhou's main job is to cut and peel eggs under a microscope, which is mostly done in winter and early spring. The cold wind blows hard, so doing such fine operations outdoors, without much activity, often leads to stiff fingers and trembling all over. I ate too much. Stop, stamp your feet, turn around, or go to the house to warm up and do the experiment. I can't work outdoors on rainy days, so I have to go back to the house. When it was too dark to work indoors, I lit a kerosene lamp. Professor Tong Dizhou and his students continued the experiment around the lamp. The room is small, crowded, dazzling and hot. Outside, these scientists were frozen into "Iceman", but indoors, they were almost baked into "firemen". There is no electricity, no lights, and the house is small, making do with it. Lack of experimental instruments and materials, trying to find alternatives; The glassware that does not need to cultivate embryos is replaced by rough ceramic wine glasses; Make a very thin glass filament by yourself, which is a micro-dissector; The frogs used in the experiment were all collected from the rural fields around the town.

In the spare time of teaching and experiment, Tong Dizhou, his colleagues and students often carry bottles and go to the wild to collect biological specimens. This is the most relaxing time for everyone, with winding paths leading to secluded places, gurgling streams and shady trees. The white clouds in the blue sky are as gentle as floc and far away. At this moment, Tong Dizhou, sitting on the slate by the river, can't help but think of the days when he worked under Professor Brassay: the old red brick school buildings in Europe, endless green grass, informative library, spotless research room, bright lights and clean appliances, what a fascinating working environment. Tong Dizhou said with emotion: "Since I have returned to my motherland without hesitation and this war-torn and devastated motherland, I will persist in research and experiment. No matter how hard the conditions are, I must do something. " In recent years, with the support of this belief, Tong Dizhou and his colleagues have completed a series of studies on the developmental ability of golden croaker eggs and the analysis of the mechanism of electric movement of frog embryo fibers despite extremely difficult conditions. After the publication of the paper based on this research result, it caused great repercussions among international peers.

On the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tong Dizhou was giving lectures abroad. When he heard the news that the new China was about to be established, he couldn't restrain his inner joy and was eager to return to his motherland. He said to his friend who advised him to stay, "I must go back. Because I come from China, my greatest wish is to make my motherland rich and strong as soon as possible. The new scientific knowledge I gained abroad must serve China. Now that China has hope, I have to hurry back. " In the upsurge of the liberation of the motherland, Tong Dizhou once again returned to the motherland.

At this time, although Tong Dizhou was nearly 50 years old, he was rejuvenated by the establishment of New China. Since 1950s, Tong Dizhou has devoted himself to the study of the development law of Wenchang fish eggs. According to the experimental results, Tong Dizhou proposed a new amendment to the developmental ability of amphioxus. Because the development of Wenchang fish eggs plays an important role in the process of biological evolution, Tong Dizhou's view has once again attracted the attention of international counterparts.

Biology is a very interesting subject. In the world, the most colorful phenomena are all kinds of activities of life. Understanding the mysteries of life and finding out the laws of life are the direction of biologists' efforts. With the deepening of scientific research and further understanding of biological genes, the mystery of life activities is gradually presented to the world. In fact, scientists' understanding of the mystery of life is only a foundation. They want to use it, transform it, control it, and even create it mythologically.

Tong Dizhou in his later years was not satisfied with his achievements, and began the final sprint of life research. At the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tong Dizhou and his colleagues conducted nuclear transplantation in fish to explore the relationship between nucleus and cytoplasm. They hybridized the nucleus and cytoplasm in an attempt to cultivate new fish species in this way. Creating new fish species means creating new life forms, which is a very attractive topic. After a series of scientific experiments, Tong Dizhou and his colleagues transplanted the nucleus of carp embryos into the enucleated eggs of crucian carp, and obtained a nuclear hybrid fish. Through the nuclear-cytoplasmic hybridization test of fish, they proved that after many times of division and replication in the cytoplasm of heterogeneous nuclei, life may change physiologically and qualitatively. This change is not entirely controlled by the nucleus, but also influenced by the cytoplasm.

Later, Tong Dizhou cooperated with Mr. Niu Manjiang of Templeton University in the United States to do an interesting experiment: they extracted a nucleic acid from the cytoplasm of crucian carp eggs, which is an important substance for transmitting life information. Later, they injected this nucleic acid into the fertilized eggs of goldfish, and cultivated a strange fish species with both characteristics of crucian carp and goldfish. The most interesting thing is that the tail of this goldfish has changed from a single tail to a double tail. Some scientists call this kind of double-tailed goldfish "one son, one cow and two fish". The success of this experiment has made Tong Dizhou's embryo experimental research step onto the forefront of the world again.

Tong Dizhou served as many administrative leaders and participated in many social activities, but no matter how busy he was, he insisted on doing scientific experiments by himself. In the 1970s, 70-year-old Tong Dizhou suffered from eye diseases and his work was very difficult. Everyone advised him: "He is too old to see things. Just sit by and talk and point it out to us. There is no need to do it yourself. " Tong Dizhou appreciates everyone's concern, but he doesn't want to be an idle person. He said: "Scientific research results are made, not spoken. I can't just talk without practice, I have to do something. "

Officials must hurry up. Tong Dizhou is busier than before. Working, studying, writing and lecturing, regardless of his old age and infirmity, he ran around and sprinted desperately. 1979 In March, when he was giving a report for the Zhejiang Science Conference, unfortunately, his cerebral blood vessel ruptured and he fell on the platform. 1979 On March 30th, Tong Dizhou passed away.

But as an excellent scientific heritage, Tong Dizhou's research achievements have entered the treasure house of human knowledge; As a great scientist, his scientific spirit will remain in the memory of future generations forever.