On January 10, the consortium of the Life Science Society of the China Association for Science and Technology released the "Top Ten Progresses in China's Life Sciences" in 2021. Among them, the project "Genetic Innovation Mechanism of Evolution of Vertebrates from Aquatic to Terr

htmlOn November 10, the consortium of the Life Science Society of the China Association for Science and Technology released the "Top Ten Progresses in China's Life Sciences" in 2021. Among them, the project "Genetic Innovation Mechanism of Evolution of Vertebrates from Aquatic to Terrestrial Evolution" jointly studied by Wang Wen and Wang Kun's team of the School of Ecology and Environment of Northwestern Polytechnical University, He Shunping, Institute of Aquatic Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhang Guojie and other teams was successfully selected. This is the team led by Professor Wang Wen again after being selected for the "Top Ten Progress in China's Life Sciences" in 2019. The annual selection of "Top Ten Progress in China's Life Sciences" aims to promote life science research and technological innovation, and fully display and publicize major scientific and technological achievements in the field of life sciences in my country. The team led by Professor Wang Wen was successfully selected twice, fully demonstrating the major breakthroughs made by the School of Ecology and Environment of Northwest Polytechnical University in basic research in the field of life sciences. At the same time, this is also an important achievement of the school taking the new situation of rapid gathering of outstanding talents at home and abroad as an opportunity to actively build a strategic layout of the Talent Special Zone with distinct backgrounds in disciplines.

school started the construction of the "Talent Special Zone" in 2014, facing the forefront of the world's science and technology, strengthening basic research and interdisciplinary layout, and established the Ecological and Environmental Protection Research Center Talent Special Zone in 2015, boldly innovating in talent training, introduction and use mechanisms, implementing special policies in discipline development, platform construction, team building, etc., providing continuous and stable funding support, and building a new model of high-level talent recruitment and cultivation with extraordinary measures. After more than four years of construction, the School of Ecology and Environment was officially established in November 2019, continuously creating fertile soil conducive to the growth and development of talents, forming a good situation of talent gathering and competition, and continuously producing a series of high-level landmark results. Professor Wang Wen's team developed and grew stronger under this background. The team included backbone members such as Qiu Qiang, Wang Kun, and Chen Lei, and were mainly engaged in research on omics big data, biological adaptation evolution mechanism and bionic applications.

Top Ten Progress in China's Life Sciences in 2019. The team joined hands with many domestic and foreign units to clarify the long-term controversial evolutionary history of ruminants, analyze the genetic basis of the unique traits of ruminants; explore the genetic basis of rapid regeneration of deer antlers and the anti-cancer ability of deer; reveal the molecular mechanisms of reindeer circadian rhythm loss, efficient vitamin D and calcium metabolism. This research explores and opens up new ways to study major life phenomena. Three long research articles on the results were published in the journal Science with a cover story (Science, 2019, 364: eaav6446; Science, 2019, 364: eaav6335; Science, 2019, 364: eaav6312).

Top 10 Progress in China's Life Sciences in 2021. The team found that the ancestors of bone fish have evolved the preliminary genetic basis related to terrestrial adaptability, which was further strengthened in the meat-finned fish represented by lung fish, and until the tetrapods finally improved and successfully landed on the ground. Science reported that the result revealed the "genetic mysteries of aquatic to terrestrial evolution hidden in the current fish"; Professor Per Alhberg, an academician of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, wrote an article pointing out that the result overcomes the challenge of fossil research that is difficult to study soft tissue organs and physiological problems. Neil Shubin, an academician of the American Academy of Sciences and an internationally renowned vertebrate landing research expert, wrote that the result "provides key cognitive and long-term expected data for understanding the research on aquatic to terrestrial in vertebrates. Two research papers on this result were published in the journal Cell (Cell, 2021, 184(5):1362-1376; 1377-1391).

In the future, Northwestern Polytechnical University will further focus on the "four aspects", adhere to the scientific research value orientation of "supporting the sky, standing on the ground, and educating people", base itself on its own development characteristics, consolidate basic research capabilities, explore cutting-edge cross-layout, fight the battle of key core technologies, help build a national important weapon, and become the main force of basic research and the new force of major scientific and technological breakthroughs. The School of Ecology and Environment will further combine the advantages of the school’s traditional disciplines, face the major needs of human sustainable development and national ecological civilization construction, cultivate leading talents with a sense of patriotism, pursue excellence, and lead the future, and strive to build a highland for the cultivation of first-class ecological and environmental talents, first-class research institutions and strategic think tanks.

(China Daily Shaanxi News Agency)