诺贝尔化学奖得主、斯坦福大学终身讲席教授谈科研探索与人才发展

2022年5月30日14:00，京领诺奖创新论坛暨国际学校颁奖典礼盛大开幕，论坛坚持学术引领、创新驱动，旨在助力我国国际化创新人才培养事业发展。

本次诺奖创新论坛邀请诺贝尔奖得主与来自哈佛大学、宾夕法尼亚大学、牛津大学、剑桥大学的世界级学者与数十位全国知名国际学校校长齐聚一堂，共话中国国际教育升级发展，畅谈创新人才培养。

在来自哈佛大学、宾夕法尼亚大学、牛津大学、剑桥大学的世界级学者与数十位全国知名国际学校校长的共同见证下，本次论坛首次发布“京领全球领军校长”奖项，并为登上“中国国际学校品牌榜”、“中国国际学校创新榜”、“中国国际学校特色榜”三大榜单的学校颁奖。

同时，论坛重磅发布京领与青苗国际双语学校、华附国际部、天津英华实验学校、德胜学校（国际）、北京德闳学校、宏文学校、苏州工业园区德威联合书院、AISL哈罗学校、北京市私立汇佳学校、上海新加坡外籍人员子女学校等十所学校联合发布的十大研究报告，通过多维度分析中国国际学校的整体情况和国际教育发展趋势，总结剖析标杆国际学校的实践经验和办学成果，帮助国际学校把握未来发展趋势，帮助家庭做出最适合的择校选择。

诺奖得主科恩伯格教授作为重磅嘉宾进行开幕致辞，分享“高中生应该如何通过学习为未来作好准备”。

科恩伯格教授

诺贝尔化学奖得主

斯坦福大学终身讲席教授

美国国家科学院院士

美国艺术与科学院院士

2006年，科恩伯格教授因对“真核转录的分子基础所作的研究”，独享诺贝尔化学奖。科恩伯格教授还获得了许多奖项，包括韦尔奇奖（2001），美国最高的化学奖，利奥波德梅耶奖（2002），法国科学院生物医学科学的最高奖。科恩伯格教授担任美国和欧洲国家科学院的院士，并被欧洲大学被授予荣誉学位。

科恩伯格教授作为诺贝尔化学奖得主、斯坦福大学终身讲席教授、美国国家科学院院士、美国艺术与科学院院士，同时也是世界上最著名的化学家之一，在本次论坛中进行了深刻的发言。科恩伯格教授的发言核心在于阐释——在科学领域探索与发现本身的令人兴奋之处，以及基础研究的重要性。

1

发现新知

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大家好，我是罗杰·科恩伯格。我是位于加州的斯坦福大学的结构生物学教授，很高兴参加诺奖创新论坛，并见证即将发布的中国国际学校系列榜单。

我知道你们很多人都是高中生，也许高中教育即将结束。毫无疑问，你们头脑里会冒出一个重要问题，那就是应该学习什么来为将来做准备？该走哪条路？如何在未来取得成功？当然，有许多道路可以遵循，我只能讲讲我在和你们差不多年龄时选择的道路。

那时，我并没有特别喜欢学习。但是当我离开大学，开始从事研究工作时，一切都改变了。虽然我并不喜欢死记硬背别人发现的东西，但当我开始自己去发现新知识时，情况就完全不同了。

2

追求本质

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我想用一些大家都很熟悉的例子来说明科学发现令人兴奋的地方。一是X射线的发现，你们肯定知道，这对于许多疾病的诊断和治疗都很重要。另一个是抗生素的发现，它消除了细菌性疾病的危害，将人类寿命从35岁延长到70岁。

这两个发现有什么共同之处呢？它们都是在追求知识本身的过程中产生的，而没有考虑知识的应用。这体现出什么？我会告诉你们这些发现：处理难题的方法不是直接上手解决，而是追求一种对其本质的好奇，这样其他的困难都会迎刃而解。这解释了推动我和许多其他人事业发展的必不可少的一步——做基础研究。

X射线是由威廉·伦琴发现的，伦琴是荷兰一位纺织商人的儿子。18岁时，他因为拒绝告发一个画老师漫画的同学而被学校永久开除。尽管如此，他还是继续了杰出的学术生涯，获得了德国沃尔茨堡大学的物理学教授职位。一百多年前的1895年，他试图通过研究来更好地理解放电和阴极射线管。他偶然注意到实验室后面的荧光屏放电时发出的微弱的光，当他把手放在阴极射线管上阻挡荧光屏上出现的光束时，他看到了自己的手骨架。这种在当时被称作伦琴射线的物质，也就是我们大多数人所知的X光，几乎有着立竿见影的效用。从那时起，X射线就在头部治疗等方面发挥着重要作用。由于这一发现，伦琴在1901年获得了第一届诺贝尔物理学奖。

青霉素的发现是一个更为人熟知的故事，我相信你们很多人都听说过亚历山大·弗莱明的经历，他在实验室的培养皿中培养细菌。有一天，他注意到培养皿上长出了一种霉菌，在霉菌周围有一圈死细菌。他知道霉菌产生的某种物质一定杀死了细菌，但他不能将有效成分分离出来。这种霉菌很不稳定，他也没有足够的经验来解决这个问题。

十年后，牛津大学的霍华德·弗洛里和恩斯特·钱恩对细菌细胞壁的合成很感兴趣。他们想要了解细菌是如何用一种主要由糖、碳水化合物和一些蛋白质组成的保护膜环绕自己的。弗洛里是澳大利亚一个鞋匠的儿子。恩斯特·钱恩是欧洲纳粹压迫下的难民。钱恩有着过目不忘的记忆力才，也是一个音乐天才。他记得曾经读过一本亚历山大·弗莱明写的晦涩的出版物，描述了一种可以杀死细菌的材料，他想知道这对研究细菌细胞壁的合成是否有用。他是一个专业娴熟的生物化学家，很快就找到了分离的有效原则。他发现它是一个小分子，他和弗洛里都明白这其中的医学意义。弗洛里和钱恩，还有弗莱明，在1946年被授予了诺贝尔医学或生理学奖。

正如我所说，这两个发现说明了基础研究的力量。这些例子并不罕见。的确，每一个发现都来自于意外，来自于偶然。因为，显而易见，发现是不能计划的，它们只能通过偶然的观察而产生。在基础研究过程中，它们几乎总是会发生，这也就是我所说的对知识本身的追求。

3

独立试错

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现在，你可能会问，这一切对你意味着什么？正如我说的，答案就是由发现带来的兴奋。我认为这是最值得的。在我自己的生活中，没有什么比那些可遇不可求的事件更让我满意，我执着追求于科学问题并最终找到重大发现，给人以重大启示。走向新知识、新发现，这些总是有重要用途的。事实上，正如其他人所说，研究只有一种，应用研究和尚未被应用的研究。我们的每一个发现最终都会被证明具有深远的意义，或者提高人类的生活质量、促进人类进步。

最后，在场的老师、家长们可能会问，我们如何帮助年轻人实现科学探索与发现的重要目标，并让他们从中获得满足感？答案是鼓励年轻人独立，让他们发现自己的道路，让他们犯错误，然后自己纠正，鼓励他们坚持不懈地追求未来。

我记得一位对我很重要的老师曾告诉我，唯一要做的事，就是每天去实验室然后失败。他的意思是，学会意识到虽然大多数实验都会失败，但总有一天会成功。而我想说，如果你们每个人都追求知识，并且持之以恒，你也会获得最终的满足感。谢谢大家。

English Version

1

Discovery

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Good day. I am Prof. Kornberg. I am a Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University in California. I'm pleased to join you for the China International School Competitiveness Ranking Conference.

I know many of you are high school students, perhaps near the end of your high school education. One important question in your mind is doubtless what to study to prepare yourselves for the future? What path to follow? How to succeed in the future? There, of course, many paths to follow. I can only speak about the path I chose when I was at a similar age.

At that time, I didn't particularly enjoy studying. It all changed when I left college and began a career in research. Although I hadn't greatly enjoyed learning, perhaps, being required to memorize what had been found by others, it was a different matter when I undertook to discover new knowledge myself.

2

Pursuit of Essence

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I would like to illustrate the thrill of discovery, of finding new knowledge with a couple of examples actually well known to you. One is the discovery of X-rays, as you are doubtless aware, important for diagnosis and for treatment of many medical conditions. The other was the discovery of antibiotics, which eliminated the scourge of bacterial disease, extending the human lifespan from approximately 35 to 70 years.

What these two discoveries have in common? They were made in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, with no idea of an application. What emerges from the brief accounts? I will give you these discoveries. The way to solve a difficult problem is not to solve it directly, but rather to pursue a curiosity about nature, and the rest will fall. It illustrates the imperativeness which has driven my own career, and that of many others -- do basic research.

X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen, Roentgen was the son of a textile merchant in the Netherlands. He was expelled, permanently expelled, from school at the age of 18, when he refused to inform on a classmate who drew caricatures of his teachers. Nevertheless, he went on to a distinguished academic career, gained the chair in physics at the University of Vortsburg in Germany, where, in 1895, a little over a hundred years ago, he was studying, attempting to better understand the electrical discharge and a cathode ray tube. He happened to notice on a fluorescent screen in the back of his laboratory a faint glow upon the electrical discharge. When he placed his hand over the cathode ray tubes, to prevent the appearance of the glow on the fluorescent screen, he saw the skeleton of his hand. The application of what was then termed Roentgen rays, or most of us know as X-rays, was almost immediate. Immediate to medicine on heads, of course, remained of great significance ever since. For this discovery, Roentgen was awarded the 1st Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

The discovery of penicillin is a more familiar story, and I'm sure that many of you have heard of the experience of Alexander Fleming, who was growing bacteria on Petri dishes in his laboratory. One day, he noticed a mold growing on the petri dish, and a circle of dead bacteria around the mold. He understood that something produced by the mold must be killing the bacteria. He was unable to isolate the active principle. It proved to be unstable, and he was not sufficiently experienced to solve the problem.

Ten years later, Howard Florry and Ernst Chain at Oxford were interested in the synthesis of bacterial cell walls. They wanted to understand how a bacterium surrounds itself with a protective wall, mostly consisting of sugar, carbohydrate, and also some protein. Florry was the son of a shoemaker in Australia. Ernst Chain was a refugee from Nazi oppression in Europe. Chain was also not a genius without a photographic memory and a musical genius as well. He remembered having read an obscure publication by Alexander Fleming describing the material killed bacteria, and he wondered if it could be useful in their investigation of bacterial cell wall synthesis. He was a skilled biochemist. He soon isolated the active principle. He discovered it was a small molecule. He and Florry appreciated the profound medical implications. Florry and Chain, along with Fleming, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1946.

As I have said, what these two discoveries illustrate is the power of basic research. These examples are not unique. Indeed, every discovery arises from serendipity, from chance. Because, of course, discoveries cannot be planned. They can only come about through chance observations. They will almost invariably occur in the course of basic research. what I have described as the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

3

Learn from Faults and Errors

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Now, you may ask, what does all of this mean for you? The answer is, as I said, the thrill of the discovery. I think there is nothing more rewarding. Certainly, something no satisfying in my own life than those rare events, when the dogged pursuit of a problem in science has given away to an important revelation. to new knowledge, to discoveries, which invariably have important applications. Indeed, as others have said, there is only one kind of research. Apply research and not yet apply research. Every discovery we make will eventually prove to have profound implications, or our quality of life for human progress.

Finally, you may ask, indeed, the adults who are present in the room, teachers，parents, may ask, how can we assist young people in achieving this important goal of discovery, in gaining the satisfaction that flows from. And the answer is to encourage independence on the part of young people, to let them discover their own paths, let them make mistakes and correct them on their own, and to encourage persistence in the pursuit of whatever half they may follow.

I recall one of my important teachers explaining the only thing to do, was going to the laboratory and failing every day. By which he meant, try knowing that most experiments would fail, but one day I would succeed. I can only say. But if each and every one of you pursues knowledge and persists in the pursuit, you will gain that ultimate satisfaction as well. Thank you for your attention.