The Center for Biomed-X Research was found in 2000, as the merging of Peking University with the Beijing Medical University (the now Peking University Health Science Center, PUHSC). The Center aims to encourage the interaction between the basic and the applied disciplines from both campuses, and the collaborations of the forefront scientists from various fields, to promote theoretical and technological innovations relating to biomedical science, ranging from molecular level to human organic scale. The main missions of the Center are: (1) providing the forum for academic exchanges between the scientists from basic science, medicine and engineering ; (2) educating talented students with interdisciplinary backgrounds; and (3) promoting collaboration of researches related to biomedicine . When the Academy of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (AAIS) was established in 2006, the Center for Biomed-X Research was incorporated as one of the core institutes.
Organized by the Center for Biomed-X Research, “The Biomedical Interdisciplinary Forum” has become an important platform for academic exchanges. By far, we have successfully hosted more than 200 seminars where the scholars from both the main campus of PKU and the PUHSC report their research progresses and discuss the topics commonly interested. The forum topics cover a variety of disciplinarians including mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, information science, engineering, earth science, economics, life sciences, basic and clinical medicine, pharmacy, public health and stomatology, etc., which help the scientists with different backgrounds get to know each other and seek opportunities for collaboration. These communication events would break through the limits of different disciplines and offer a platform for the clash of minds, to lay the groundwork for interdisciplinary studies.
Educating the students with biomedical interdisciplinary features is another main mission of the Center. A graduate program enrolling the students with various backgrounds has been carried out since 2002, recruiting the students from basic sciences (e.g. biology, physics, l chemistry and basic medical science), as well as those with applied sciences and engineering background (e.g. electronics, computer technology, biomedical engineering and clinical medicine, etc.). Our mentors of graduate students come from the PKU Divisions of Natural Science, Information and Engineering, PKUHSC and a number of clinical hospitals. With their complementary advantages and interdisciplinary collaborations, the Center has graduated a large number of excellent alumni specialized in interdisciplinary fields. In their studies at the Center, they accepted many challenges of solving clinical complex problems through interdisciplinary approaches, gained teamwork skills that are essential to multidisciplinary studies, and achieved high-level academic success. Those who graduate with academic degrees have launched their careers in higher education institutes, research organizations and enterprises, to continue showing their capabilities of research and teaching in relevant fields, and exploring their potentials of technological innovations.
In the past years, with the goal of solving clinical and basic medical problems, the researchers in fields of clinical medicine, basic medicine, life sciences, physics, chemistry, environmental sciences, information sciences and engineering have been working together through cross-disciplinary collaborations. Supported by national funds including the “973 Program” and the “Fund of NNSFC for Key Projects” etc., the groups in the Center have made encouraging achievements, and published hundreds of research articles. Many of those publications appeared in the fields’ most influential journals, including Science，Nature Medicine, Biomaterials, Journal of Materials Science & Technology, Circulation Research, PLoS Biology, Cancer Letters, Diabetes, Sleep Medicine，Environment Science and Technology, Lab on Chip, NMR in Medicine, Radiology， Scientific Report, et cetera. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the researches could exploit the strength of different fields, and meet the needs of frontier medicine using cutting-edge solutions and technologies. Many world-class achievements have been made in fields like biomaterial engineering, cardiovascular medicine with application of nano-technology, plasma medicine, medical imaging and medical big-data analysis, as well as rehabilitation engineering.
In the field of biomaterials and tissue engineering, for the research of stem cell and regenerative medicine, a novel clear constituent culture system of human pluripotent stem cell has been built, which could not only support body cell reprogramming, but also keep and enable pluripotent stem cell differentiating directionally. For the study of biometal, we firstly defined and classified “Biodegradable Metals” term internationally, which has been quoted directly by the new drafted ISO. In addition, the design thought of degradable magnesium coronary stents has been forming, and the synergistic mechanism for the magensium alloy to promote new bone formation has revealed and published in Nature Medicine, which could have broader implications in the treatment or prevention of other bone diseases or injuries, such as high-energy fractures resulting from sports injuries and other traumas. For the research of polymer, a novel PEEK composite for long-term implanting in the body has been obtained, a nano hydroxyapatite with high bioactivity was synthesized with polydopamine as template, and the nano electrospun polydopamine mixed PCL nanofiber for tissue engineering scaffold has been developed.
In the fields of diagnostic techniques in cardiovascular medicine, new patented diagnostic technique has been developed based on studies on the excitation-contraction coupling, which fills in the blank for the early diagnosis of heart failure, and provide a clue to the individualized diagnosis and treatment for patients. The research paper that demonstrated the decreased efficiency of excitation-contraction (E-C) coupling in failing cardiomyocytes was first published in PloS Biology and latter highlighted by an article in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, where the results were described as “might be beneficial in the prevention of heart failure. Following studies have revealed that the up-regulated expression of microRNA-24 is an important molecular mechanism for the decreased excitation-contraction coupling efficiency in early stage of heart failure. The suppression of this expression could prevent the progression of hypertrophy, which may suggest a new target against heart failure.
In the researches of plasma medicine, a novel plasma jet was designed as dielectric barrier structure with hollow electrodes, which could excite air to form plasma in atmosphere environment and generate high electron density over 10^15/cm^3. It has been successfully applied in fields of stomatology, sterilization, and vaccine preparation, etc. For example, the cold plasma can kill bacteria of biofilm in root canal, and used for tooth whitening with high effectiveness. A technique of producing plasma-activated water (PAW) has developed for bacterial sterilization, which can be applied to both clinic and agriculture fields like fruit and vegetable preservation. As for environmental applications, the technology of this non-thermal plasma system could effectively inactive various bacteria, viruses and allergens in microbial aerosol by providing a new way of air purification.
A kind of pulsed power technology, the nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs), has been developed in our laboratory for biomedical applications, which include inhabitation of breast cancer, suppressing melanoma growth, reducing toxicity of ricin, promoting the proliferation and differentiation of chondrocytes, and even shortening fermentation period of Streptomyces avermitilis to achieve an effective increase of antibiotic production. With quantitatively regulating the parameters of frequency and intensity of nsPEFs, the technique provides a new approach not only for clinical applications such as cancer treatment and tissue regeneration, but also for industry development such as microbiological product upgrading.
In the area of medical imaging and diagnosis, a series of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences and parameter analysis methods have been developed relating to non-invasive tissue perfusion and oxygen-uptake-rate quantitative assessment. Based on compressed sensing technique, we proposed a relaxation-enhanced RECE-3D MERGE sequence that can significantly improve the quality of 3D vessel wall imaging. Also, an optimized compressed sensing-combined MRI sequence could be used to obtain dynamic contrast-enhanced images with high temporal resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), applicable to assessment of glomerular filtration rate and renal perfusion parameters. Inspired by monopole antenna theory, a novel flexible coil with high SNR and large region of view (ROI) was designed, that is effective for high SNR and tissue contrast MR imaging of keen joint and other body segments . Using resting-state functional MR imaging, the reason of why intranasal insulin could enhance the cognitive ability in type 2 diabetic patients was studied that revealed the related brain functional networks.
About medical signal processing and big data analytics, we use scale-free method to analyze EEG data of the patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS), before and after their continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy. The analyses of nonlinear dynamics have shown the distinct advantages in assessment of sleep quality of OSAHS patients, and further confirmed the significant effect of personalized pink noise on inducing more stable sleep time to improve sleep quality. With the development of a portable system of noninvasive impedance cardiogram detection, a new index reflecting cardiorespiratory coupling ability was extracted by an innovative use of big data analytics, called oscillatory coupling factor (OCF), that could illustrate the compensatory ability of heart during sleep of OSAHS patients. Moreover, deep learning and pattern recognition were studied to establish a one-stop prostate cancer assisted diagnosis system based on a large number of clinical MR images, by confirming the effectiveness with the tests in multiple-centers. Furthermore, a self-adaptive denoising and intelligent recognition method has been developed for accurate measurement of intima-media thickness (IMT) from ultrasound carotid images.