21st Century Is the Century of Biology!

2022.

On the USTC campus.

West District AED.

Outside the building, the three characters "Library," inscribed by Mr. Qi Gong, gleamed in the sunlight, their strokes radiating the resilience and vitality that ran through every USTC student's blood.

Meanwhile, inside the library.

A young man sat alone in a deserted corner, writing furiously:

"As everyone knows,"

"the 21st century is the century of biology."

"Sometime around 2000, this slogan began to catch on. Computers had been all the rage before that, but everyone knows what happened then: the Nasdaq crashed, the internet bubble burst, and biology took on an important historical mission."

"For high school students, that meant biology became one of the most competitive majors at schools across the country. It was almost always ranked first or second."

"It even ranked first among the most popular majors to transfer into during sophomore year."

"Back then, my classmates used to joke that we'd given up our chance to get into Tsinghua or Peking University to embrace the future of the 21st century."

"Who could have guessed that, a decade or so later, 'the 21st century is the century of biology' would become a running joke among those of us in the field? The joke wasn't the slogan itself, but the likes of us who studied biology."

"To put it in today's terms, 'it's a sad story.'"

The young man paused. As if sensing something, he picked up his phone and tapped the screen.

But there were no new messages.

The young man's mouth twitched. He lowered his head and continued writing:

"Actually, I think 'the 21st century is the century of biology' is looking more and more likely to become reality.

"The direction the biology industry is taking has become increasingly clear. With the development of technology, many fields in biology may make breakthroughs in the years ahead."

"Talented people in the industry can, of course, reap both recognition and financial rewards. There's a great example right beside me: an alumnus who earned his doctorate at one of the country's top ten universities and now works as CTO at a domestic gene-sequencing startup, with an annual salary of a million yuan. If the company goes public, he'll be worth over a hundred million."

"Over the past decade, technologies like computing, physics, and automation have made more than just rapid progress in their applications to Life Sciences."

"Just look at the diagnostic equipment in hospitals. How much has it improved compared with ten years ago?"

"Ten years ago, biological sequencing was prohibitively expensive, a project that could land you a major paper."

"What about now?"

"Any decent hospital can do it."

"Or take gene mapping. Ten years ago, it was a major undertaking, both time-consuming and labor-intensive. Now it's cheap enough for authors on Zhihu to afford."

"Ten years ago, a saying went around the Life Sciences community:

'Biologists spend all day conducting experiments and analyzing data, while computer scientists and mathematicians analyze and interpret the data.'

"But what about now?"

"If you graduate with a doctorate in biology and can only run experiments, without knowing a few programming languages or R, you'd be embarrassed to even say hello to anyone."

"Thirty years on, outsiders still think Life Sciences means flowers and plants, farming and fertilizing, meat and poultry, diagnosing patients by inspection and questioning, surgery and injections, shooting guns and running PCR... They still think it's hard to find a job and that nobody wants you after graduation."

"They don't realize that Life Sciences has long since changed beyond recognition."

"For example, the big data boom that began around 2012 was driven by the leap in sequencing technology that Life Sciences made in 2008.

"Besides, AI, machine learning, genetic algorithms—which of these wasn't brought along by Life Sciences?

"I started studying big data analysis at USTC's Gifted Class, and I began learning about AI and machine learning in 2011. I studied all of these as part of the Life Sciences curriculum.

"And when did these concepts become popular? At least three years later!"

At this point,

the young man was getting more and more caught up in his writing, and his strokes grew heavier:

"At present, the biggest problem in the entire biology community is the rat race."

"It's like a lottery. You don't need any brains to enter; anyone can do it. All you need is money and hard work, so everyone just keeps competing."

"Everyone knows there are only a few combinations of numbers likely to win, so it's common for multiple research groups to try for the same one."

"Whoever draws it first gets the advantage, and then it becomes a race against time. Students work until eleven at night and don't take weekends off;

"they send their results to their advisors, who get up in the middle of the night to review and submit them."

"They'd rather send their hard-won lottery numbers to a garbage journal for publication than let their rivals get ahead."

"And so professors at prestigious universities and researchers with long lists of publications end up fighting tooth and nail over who drew first, losing every bit of their dignity."

As he wrote, the young man suddenly came to his senses:

This was material for his doctoral defense. The latter part clearly couldn't be included in that sort of setting.

So he shook his head and drew a long line through that section of the manuscript.

At the same time, the sound of a chair scraping came from a desk not far away.

His train of thought broken, the young man instinctively looked up.

It turned out to be the noise made by a couple of lovebirds—cough, a young couple—who had finished studying and were getting up to leave.

The young man suddenly thought of his waifu. Should he go see Tifa or Alice tonight?

Then he came back to himself, gave his head a little shake, and continued writing:

"Of course, as things stand, the field of biology may still be some way from a full-blown boom."

"What conditions does a field need to take off like computer science did?"

"I think there are three prerequisites:

1. Low-cost development.

2. High tolerance for failure, so developers can quickly launch projects and iterate.

3. A 2C business model."

"Unfortunately, biology-related industries don't currently meet those conditions."

"For example, developing genetically modified crops requires enormous investment—think of Monsanto's giant screening machines—and there's little room for error. One pollen grain drifting away can be a disaster."

"Or take drug development: it's expensive, and the tolerance for failure is just as ridiculously low. For all sorts of internal and external reasons, the FDA imposes strict requirements."

"This means biological startups depend heavily on resources and move slowly, making it difficult for the field to take off."

After finishing this section, the young man took a deep breath and concluded:

"But I believe these obstacles will be overcome one day!"

"I dare say that the 21st century will still be the century of biology!"

"That is the pursuit of countless pioneers in Life Sciences, and the dream of my life!"

"Defending student: Xu Yun."

After writing all that, the young man stretched languidly.

He carefully capped his fountain pen and gathered up his papers.

Then he gave the area one last check.

Once he was sure he hadn't left anything behind, the young man gathered his belongings and walked out of the West District Library.

When he got back to the little place he rented off campus, the young man took off his glasses and flopped onto the bed, arms and legs spread out like the Chinese character for "big."

He stared blankly at the ceiling.

After a while, he shook his head helplessly, a wry smile tugging at his lips:

"Damn, who the fuck would study biology if they didn't have a cheat?"