Two Nobel Laureates Inspire Me to Press On

Shinya Yamanaka, the renowned Japanese stem-cell scientist who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, spoke at an "International Olympic Symposium held in Japan" about how he came to medicine. After reading his life story, I was greatly encouraged.

In his twenties, Yamanaka's father contracted the then-incurable hepatitis C and finally died of it in 1988 at the age of 58; Yamanaka himself was only 25. Fresh out of medical school, there was very little the young Yamanaka could do for his father, but his father was still glad to see him hanging up his IV drip, and his father hoped he would go into medicine.

In that era people did not yet understand what kind of disease hepatitis C was. Only in the year after Yamanaka's father died did Americans discover the hepatitis C virus. Once the cause was clear, researchers around the world interested in it began to study the hepatitis C virus.

Through their efforts, in 2014 a highly effective hepatitis C drug named Harvinder (Xian Fan Ning) came on the market in the United States. It is an ideal drug: taken by mouth just once a day for three months, it clears 99.5% of the hepatitis C virus from the patient's body.

But for Yamanaka's father, the development of this drug came a quarter of a century too late. Still, the conquest of hepatitis C brought good news to other patients.

After his father's death, Yamanaka immersed himself in medical research. At 31, having earned his doctorate, Yamanaka went to the United States and spent three and a half years researching at the Gladstone Institutes, a medical research organization in San Francisco. There he eventually discovered a new gene named NAT1 (Novel APOBEC1 Target 1), which he found might be related to cancer.

Building on this, Yamanaka embarked on stem-cell research, eventually becoming Japan's famous stem-cell scientist and winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his outstanding work.

From ancient times to the present, many medical people have taken up medicine because their own close relatives suffered from disease. Zhang Zhongjing of the Han Dynasty, Li Dongyuan and Zhu Danxi of the Four Great Masters of the Jin-Yuan period, and the Japanese kampo physician Dōmoto Shinkyū—like Yamanaka, they all rose to study medicine after beloved relatives died of illness and eventually became great masters of medicine.

The life sciences have developed precisely because of the dedication of generation after generation of such determined people. Diseases whose causes were once incomprehensible have found their causes through these researchers' efforts; diseases that once had no effective treatment have found effective treatments through their efforts. Their work has brought well-being to humankind.

Another Nobel laureate who has touched me is the German-born American scientist John B. Goodenough. This elderly man, who lived through World War II, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the age of 97. After the war, he switched to physics research at an advanced age; when he applied to graduate school in physics, someone kindly advised him: "Everything worthwhile in physics has already been discovered by people your age; you are starting too late now." But he insisted and was eventually admitted to the graduate program in physics at the University of Chicago. He did not begin research on lithium batteries until age 54, and ultimately achieved enormous success.

Professor John B. Goodenough's story moved me deeply. His life tells me that, for someone who wants to settle down and do research, it is never too late to begin. I myself, after all, already have more than a decade of grounding in medical study; at 40, resolving to go deeper and do more meaningful basic medical research, I am still young compared with Professor Goodenough.

I draw inspiration from their stories, not because I too want to win a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is far beyond me. What has stirred in me—someone who has practiced medicine for years—is not fame or gain, but the repeated setbacks and blows I have suffered in practice.

These defeats and blows once filled me with a deep sense of powerlessness, making me feel I had accomplished nothing and deeply doubting my own ability and worth. There are still far too many unsolved medical problems for us human beings; those of us who study medicine face every day the passing of life and the shattering of the emotions bound up with life.

Of those who die of illness, some are our relatives and some are not, but they are our fellow human beings, and they and their loved ones feel the same emotions we do. When we physicians, on whom such hopes are pinned, stand helpless as patients suffer, even dying because of disease, our hearts ache.

I have no wish to explore the ultimate meaning of life—that ethereal question rife with disagreement. What lies before me are real, practical problems to be solved: how to treat patients' diseases, how to relieve their suffering. This is a physician's natural calling, and it was the original intention of those of us who took up medicine because our own relatives suffered from illness.

I have achieved some success in some patients, but have met failure and setback in far more. These failures tell me I am still far from ultimate success, and that our human community of shared destiny is still far from ultimately conquering all diseases.

I get up at four every morning to study. What wakes me is neither the temptation of fame nor some lofty spirit, but an unstoppable drive born of my original reason for studying medicine.

I have also met many doctors, but few as hardworking as myself. In the last years of my mother's life, I studied medicine and rushed about seeking better doctors for her with the urgency of someone racing against death, forgetting to eat and sleep. Such a life trained me, until now this study has become a habit.

But honestly, even now I still face only darkness. I have not seen the dawn of my conquering cancer. Although I have some successful cases in hand, I am still far from thoroughly conquering cancer. As long as this problem is unsolved, I cannot rest for a single day.

So in my own life plan there is no such thing as retirement. I regard retirement as pure waste of life. If I can keep striving to Professor Goodenough's age, I believe I, like him now, will be white-haired but still working selflessly in the lab alongside a crowd of young men.

For me, the greatest difficulty is not passing various examinations but being unable to break through the medical barriers before us. Of course, many diseases are caused by the self-destructive acts of foolish human beings. If greed-driven humans had not personally destroyed our living environment, there would probably not be so many terminal illnesses in the world.

Anti-cancer work is a systematic war; viewed from a broader horizon, medicine covers an extremely wide range. But a butterfly cannot fly across the sea, and for today's humanity there are still many bad habits that cannot be changed. We can only hope that better education will push humankind toward a more civilized age.

Someone once told me to keep a low profile, not to set myself above ordinary people, so as to avoid mockery. That is indeed a fine self-protective philosophy, but it is not something I can do after all. Opening my diary from junior high school, I see a hot-blooded, high-aspiring teenager; now, middle-aged, I find I still cannot be remade by life into another kind of person. Whenever I am moved by some exceptional figure, I cannot help raising my own standards, taking them as my models and spurring myself forward. Perhaps this is an unchangeable fate.

I will press on as always; no hardship can make me yield, and only death can end my struggle. The meaning of my life can be summed up in Zhuge Liang's words: "Burning myself out in service, until death ends it." I personally believe that only by devoting oneself to striving for a lofty goal unrelated to fame and gain can one "be so joyful as to forget sorrow, and not notice old age approaching," and avoid being tangled up by the trivial mess of life, living out one's true self.