20161209 CNDY omPrintsite BSECT CHN-BRO LIF 008 020 ... · such as race, high blood pres...
Transcript of 20161209 CNDY omPrintsite BSECT CHN-BRO LIF 008 020 ... · such as race, high blood pres...
20 LIFE Friday, December 9, 2016 CHINA DAILY
EXPAT EXPERT
ON A HERBAL ROUTECanadian biologistYaacov BenDavidand his Guizhou teamare isolating TCMcomponents forcancer research,Liu Xiangrui reports.
S ince Canadian biologist Yaacov BenDavid put down roots inSouthwest China’s
Guizhou province, he hasbeen driven by a desire tounderstand how traditionalChinese medicine works.
BenDavid, 61, was born inIran and received his PhD inmolecular immunologyfrom Hebrew University inIsrael, in 1987.
He worked for the University of Toronto for more than20 years since the early1990s and also served as asenior scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute inthe Canadian city for years.
“If we find out what arethe active compounds thatactually help in TCM, thenwe have already translated it(the result) and the entireworld will benefit,” says BenDavid.
He is now the director of atumor pharmacologyresearch unit at Guizhou’sKey Laboratory of Chemistryfor Natural Products, anaffiliate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Sunnybrook ResearchInstitute in Canada, wherehe worked earlier, has successfully identified oncogenes and tumor suppressorgenes that have mutated invarious forms of cancers.
In recent years, BenDavid turned his attention tostudying the developmentof compounds and drugsthat can be used to fight cancer.
He saw opportunities forbreakthrough research inGuizhou when he first visited the laboratory in provincial capital Guiyang forlectures in 2013.
“I saw how I could make adifference here,” says BenDavid of his decision to workin Guiyang.
“I am a biologist and theyhave chemists. They extractcompounds from TCM andthere has to be somebody tounderstand their functions.That is my expertise.”
The province has suitablesoil and air for the growth ofherbs for TCM. The region ishome to many ethnicgroups, such as the Miaopeople who have used TCMfor long.
Since 2013, Guizhou hasinvested about 200 millionyuan ($29.4 million) annually to support the TCM industry.
Foreign professionals likeBenDavid are also beingsought by the province as it
looks to drive research andinnovation.
Few studies have beendone on natural compoundsextracted from TCM whilemany compounds used inWestern medicine havealready been analyzed.
“Here I have access toeverything new and locallysourced,” he says, adding thatChinese scientist Tu Youyou,who won last year’s NobelPrize in medicine for herresearch on an antimalarial
substance, is an inspirationfor him.
Although ancient, TCM isstill not widely accepted globally because not many studies have been done on it.
He hopes to change the situation with his work, hesays.
“Chemists can modify anddevelop TCM to make it better if we know how itworks.”
In2014, theGuizhou laboratory’s program was included
in the One Thousand ForeignExperts project, which wasinitiated by the central government in 2011 to invite foreign specialists to the countryover a decade or so. Theproject provides grants toqualified candidates.
In this case, the laboratoryhas been given more than 10million yuan to facilitate drugresearch by both the centraland provincial governments.
Despite such support,BenDavid has had to dealwith challenges, includingbuilding the laboratoryfrom scratch and languagebarriers at the beginning, hesays.
It’s difficult to find enoughlocal talent, because peopleusually prefer working inbigger cities like Beijing andShanghai.
He has lost more than 10trained technicians in thepast two years, he says.
But BenDavid is glad thathe has built an internationallevel laboratory, which hasseen visits by highlevel officials, including the Ministerof Science and Technology,Wang Gang, earlier this year.
Now, BenDavid’s teamhas about 15 chemists,whose work includes isolating components in TCM.
The laboratory has identified some TCM components
that might be used for thetreatment of leukemia andother kinds of cancer, and afew relevant drugs are inpreclinical development, hesays.
In addition to drug discovery, BenDavid’s team is alsoengaged in uncovering themolecular mechanism ofcancer progression.
In collaboration with localscientists, they are workingon understanding the molecular cause of diseases specific to the province.
BenDavid has also takenadvantage of his wide network of contacts to helpGuizhou enhance its international exchanges, including bringing top scientistsfor conferences.
BenDavid, who lives inGuiyang, says he enjoys lifein the city despite the distance between the laboratory and the city center.
Having completed his firstthree years at the laboratory,BenDavid has just renewedhis contract for anotherthree.
BenDavid, who has married Yao Shaojuan, a localwoman, is learning Chineseand says he plans to stay inChina for a long time.
Contact the writer [email protected]
By CHEN [email protected]
Chinese actress Mei Tinghas played many complexroles on screen in the past twodecades.
In the 2001 TV drama, Don’tTalk to Strangers, whichrevolves around domestic violence, she was a battered wife.Then, she appeared as a masseuse in the film Blind Massage, a big winner at the 2014Golden Horse Awards held inTaiwan.
The film also won her a bestactress nomination at the Berlin International Film Festivalthe same year.
Of late, Mei, 41, has added anew offscreen role as an advocator of children’s publichealth.
On Dec 3, which is markedas the International Day ofPersons with Disabilities, Meiappeared at the Beijing
Record Factory in a hutong(alley) to record poems alongwith children with hearingproblems.
They read poems such asFarewell to Cambridge by thelate Chinese poet Xu Zhimo.
The recordings are part of aproject called Joy Wave by China Children and Teenager’sFund, a local nonprofit founded in 1981.
“Motherhood has changedme. I now want to speak forunderprivileged children,”says Mei, whose daughter isaged 4 and son is 1 year old.
“I feel connected with parents who share anxiety abouttheir children’s health withme.”
The softspoken actress saysshe was short on patience earlier but since her childrencame along, her outlooktoward life has changed.
According to Zhu Xisheng,secretarygeneral of China
Children and Teenager’s Fund,among the country’s earliestfoundations to help childrenwith disabilities, there are currently more than 130,000 children with hearingimpairments under the age of
6, and every year, the loss ofhearing is reported in morethan 20,000 infants.
Mei is the first celebrity tojoin the project, but more arelikely to record their voices forit, which is a good way to bring
public attention to children’shealth issues, Zhu says.
The film, Blind Massage,also gave Mei a closer view ofthe hardships faced by peoplewith disabilities.
“We spent months living
with them and they were funny, smart and positivealthough they couldn’t see,”says Mei of the film’s shootingin 2012.
Mei met her photographerhusband, Zeng Jian, on thesets of the movie. They gotmarried in 2012. The couplewill work on a new film nextyear.
Previously, Mei was marriedto film director Yan Po.
Born in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu province, Meijoined a children’s dancetroupe when she was 7. A fewyears later she became a professional dancer with a troupeof the People’s LiberationArmy.
Subsequently she quit dancing and moved to acting.
In 1996, Mei was admittedto the Central Academy ofDrama in Beijing and herclassmates included ZhangZiyi and Qin Hailu, some of
the country’s bestknownactresses today.
Mei’s performance in the1997 Chinese movie, A Time ToRemember, which was directed by Ye Daying and had thelate Hong Kongbased singeractor Leslie Cheung in thecolead role, won her the bestactress award at the CairoInternational Film Festival thefollowing year.
She didn’t finish college asmany acting opportunitiescame her way and she wantedto fully devote herself tothem.
Rather than choosing commercial movies or international productions, Mei prefersarthouse films and theaterproductions in China, whichshe says makes her feel “freeand real”.
“I am not ambitious. But theroles that attract me alwaysoffer me new insights into mywork,” she says.
ACTRESS
Mei Ting takes on new role for children with disabilities
Actress Mei Ting attends a charity event in Beijing to help children with hearing impairments.PHOTOS BY FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY
By XINHUA in Washington
Women who have an optimistic view on life are morelikely to live longer, a US studysaid on Wednesday. The study,published in the AmericanJournal of Epidemiology, analyzed data from 2004 to 2012from 70,000 women enrolledin the Nurses’ Health Study, alongrunning US study tracking women’s health via surveys every two years.
The researchers looked atparticipants’ levels of optimism and other factors thatmight play a role in how optimismmayaffectmortality risk,such as race, high blood pressure, diet and physical activity.
It found the most optimisticwomen, or the top quartile,had a nearly 30 percent lowerrisk of dying from any of thediseases analyzed in the studycompared with the least optimistic women, or the bottomquartile.
The most optimistic womenhad a 16 percent lower risk ofdying from cancer; 38 percentlower risk of dying from heartdisease; 39 percent lower riskof dying from stroke; 38 percent lower risk of dying fromrespiratory disease; and 52percent lower risk of dyingfrom infection.
Previous studies have linkedoptimism with reduced risk ofearly death from cardiovascular problems, but this was thefirst to find a link betweenoptimism and reduced riskfrom other major causes.
“While most medical andpublic health efforts todayfocus on reducing risk factorsfordiseases, evidencehasbeenmounting that enhancing psychological resilience may alsomake a difference,” says EricKim, research fellow at theHarvard T.H. Chan School ofPublic Health and coleadauthor of the study.
“Our new findings suggestthat we should make efforts toboost optimism, which hasbeen shown to be associatedwith healthier behaviors andhealthier ways of coping withlife challenges.”
The study also found thathealthy behaviors only partially explain the link betweenoptimism and reduced mortality risk.
One other possibility is thathigher optimism directlyimpacts our biological systems, Kim says.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Optimisticwomenlive longer,says study
Training local talent is one of BenDavid’s biggest tasks here.
Yaacov BenDavid and his research team in Guiyang. The biologist says he’s glad to have built an internationallevel laboratory. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
“I saw how I could make a difference here. I am a biologist and they havechemists. They extract compounds from TCM and there has to be somebodyto understand their functions. That is my expertise.”
Yaacov BenDavid, Canadian biologist, Key Laboratory of Chemistry for Natural Products in Guiyang
39 percent
lower risk of dying from strokefor optimistic women, according to a US study on how optimism may affect mortality risk.