Dear President Wang Chen, dear students, teachers, relatives, friends and guests,
It is my great honor to attend the graduation ceremony and degree awarding ceremony of the 2023 class of Peking Union Medical College. First of all, I would like to extend my warm congratulations to the more than 1,000 students who graduated this year, and my heartfelt congratulations to the parents and teachers who nurtured you.
I have attended college graduation ceremonies many times, and this time I am most honored because I have great respect for medicine. My grandfather was a doctor, not unknown, but I respected him very much. My two sons graduated from Harvard and Stanford medical schools, respectively, and medicine is one of the most important industries for my family. I am also very grateful for medicine. When I was ill last year, the Union Medical College Hospital saved me from the most difficult time. I am also glad to see that under the leadership of President Wang Chen, the medical school has attracted more interest and attention to mathematics subjects.
Medicine is a noble profession to protect life, doctors are heroes in maintaining human health and human life, I especially admire our doctors, they have a strong will, and the spirit of sacrifice, but also have lofty wisdom. There is no more grateful, great, and noble cause than saving lives, so I “envy” you being doctors.
Mathematics is becoming increasingly important in all industries, especially in the life sciences. I am very concerned with the variety of important mathematical studies derived from medicine. When I received the invitation from President Wang Chen, I wanted to encourage the students to strengthen their understanding of modern technology, especially the integration of mathematics and medicine, through today's speech. Modern medicine integrates basic science, technology, and humanity. Only with advanced science and technology and a humanistic spirit can we truly protect our lives and be a doctor of noble moral character.
Medical problems are specific and complex, and we are unable to understand the mystery from only one discipline, so we need to master interdisciplinary knowledge. Medical research needs to collect, analyze, and interpret data, extract the internal laws of the development of human diseases from complex and even chaotic data, and formulate corresponding disease prevention means from the laws. This systematic research is inseparable from mathematics, statistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence technology, which is very needed in modern medicine. Only by integrating the methods of mathematics, statistics, calculation, and engineering can we explain the rules of the overall operation of life, predict the basic laws of disease formation and development quantitatively, and combine with the principles of pharmacology to obtain the best time and dosage of the use of individual drugs.
Mathematics can explore the essence of things and discover the laws of nature. For example, by using mathematical tools, we can predict and predict the timing and speed of aging, and find key genes affecting aging, and how they act. Mathematics can help us to find out the biological clock of the human body, show whether the actual age and the biological age are consistent, and study the causes and mechanisms of diseases caused by aging, which is of great significance for controlling the occurrence and development of chronic diseases, and even for the artificial intervention of aging.
In recent years, the intersection of medicine and mathematics has received great attention and development in the international medical community. Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Washington, the University of New York, and Johns Hopkins University are paying much attention to the combination of medical research, clinical experiments, and the mathematical-statistical method, and even many medical schools set up computational medical research institutions, and computational medical graduate courses, training the specialized talents using computational methods to explore to cure, which is related to molecular sociology, genetics, physiology, and anatomy. Harvard Medical School also has a close exchange with the Mathematics Institute at Harvard University, and we once provided a lot of the methods they needed, and they provided a lot of data for us too. My son, a professor of immune system and brain science at Harvard Medical School, once said that there is a lot of data that cannot be collated, and many of our friends and mathematician colleagues are willing to support data research in medicine.
As the top medical center in China, Union Medical College is fully qualified to build a platform for the integration and intersection of medicine and mathematics, providing an important engine for exploring the mechanism of the formation of various diseases. I am very glad to see that Tsinghua University has cooperated with the Union Medical College. With the encouragement of President Wang Chen, we have begun to produce a small part of the research results. We and Tsinghua University jointly established an Applied Mathematics Research Institute based in Beijing City. We have a group of world-class mathematics masters who are very interested in cooperating with the Union Medical College. I believe that our mathematical theories and technologies will contribute to medical research.
Mathematics helps medicine solve problems, and conversely, medicine pushes mathematics to put forward new theories and new methods. Mathematicians love nature and the problems in them, while medicine provides theories, methods, and important questions. Tsinghua University and the Union Medical College are both the top universities in China. We hope that the mathematics major of Tsinghua University and the Union Medical College can have a spark and make an important contribution to China's mathematics and medical cause in the interdisciplinary field.
We are now living in an era of both opportunities and challenges. We have advanced instruments and equipment, which constantly provide continuous data and raw materials to solve various mathematical and medical problems. At the same time, the medical problems we face are more complex and broader than at any time in history. Regardless of what future students work in, or clinician, or college teacher, the intersection of math and medicine will benefit us, even the key to success. In other words, the most important way for China's medical career to reach the forefront of the world is through interdisciplinary research.
China's medical research has entered its golden age. Today, I see the first batch of "4 + 4" pattern graduates. With substantial basic scientific knowledge, you can conduct the most advanced medical research, especially interdisciplinary medical research. Due to its potential influence and advantages in mathematical engineering and other disciplines, computational medicine is the frontier and vanguard in China's medical field across the world's advanced ranks and is of great significance for promoting China's medical research. I hope that you students can lead China's medical career to the forefront of the world after graduation.
You graduated students, you are in the best period in the history of China. I hope that all of us can show our talents in the medical cause, several virtuous and talented doctors will emerge, become the leading figures in the Chinese medical field, and constantly promote the reform and development of the medical and health cause in China and even the world. The future is on your shoulders, I hope, from graduation, your life will open a new beautiful chapter.
Finally, I wish all the students can have a successful, healthy, and happy future life!
Thank you very much.
Translation-Gao Xudong
