We held a science workshop for the high school students from Beijing National Day School. These 16-year-old students are members participating in Biology Olympiad Competition. They are talented and highly motivated, eager to explore the world of life sciences.

The workshop include: talks on frontier topics in life sciences giving by our team members, laboratories visit, and art design workshop themes in “ What’ my dream about life sciences?” See more about the artworks in our gallery :)

Yipeng Li: First of all, I think life sciences are very useful since it can help to solve problems in daily life. Secondly, it’s a very attractive subject since it originates from the nature, rather than a man-made item.

Guanhua Zhu: I have a dream to use biological science to change the world into a better place. The powerful genetic engineering technology enables us to make foods of higher nutrient value, to generate organs that can replace the damaged ones.

Y. Qiao: I hope advanced biological science could help to combine traditional Chinese food and Chinese medicine together, so that we can keep health simply by having special made meals. Another dream of me is to use transgenic technology to make a real SpongeBob, my favorite cartoon character.

Yixue Wang “Billions of cells make up a plant, and plants are made into food.” That’s how I think the bio-world is most directly related to us. I’m always curious about how creatures are reproduced. For me, life science is the study of exploring how living organisms is born, grew up, metabolizing and reproduced? As I looking into the future of life sciences, I expect gene therapies will be of great use to treat miscellaneous diseases.

AQ Xu: I have been studying for the Biology Olympiad Competition. From my point of view, life sciences are very important components of daily life. Life sciences are something related to thick textbooks, sample slides, microscopes and the wheat we grow in the greenhouse. As I looking into the future, I hope we can apply the basic research to solve real problems, like to treat diseases, to solve energy problems, to extend life expectancy, to develop computers based on DNA code.

Xiaoyi Zhang What interests me most is the relationship between living organisms. I’m very lucky to live in an apartment with a small garden, so I’m able to plant several trees, which always remind me of delicious fruits. What annoys me is that there are so many webworms these days, and all kinds of tress are being eaten. So, I think perhaps with the help of life sciences, we can develop efficient methods to deal with pests.

Ziying Zhang From my point of view, life sciences are made of three big parts: plants, animals and human beings. I think life sciences aims at explaining the nature of living organisms.

Tianyi Hu: My drawing is several weird neurons. What amazed me most is the fact that the outside world and our human beings are very complicated, but they are both made of separable simple individual elements. Though as creatures with high level of intelligence, we don't really understand why we are alive? What's the nature of thinking? And what's the significance of existence? So, what I want to explore is the nature of life. I want to explain the questions above with apprehensible scientific language.

Yuehan Xiong: First, I think it will be great if we can use the advanced science to make the most delicious food in the world. Second, I wonder if science can help common human being to get ESP (Extra Sensory Perception), which is definitely cool. Third, I hope as the biomedical science making great progress, the doctor-patient relationship will also be improved in some ways.

Jinfeng Yang: I think life sciences will change our life in many different ways. For example, improving biological technology will make it possible to compress nutrient and medicine we need everyday into a small pill, making our life much easier. And I believe artificial intelligence will be another application of life sciences research, creating a world with perfect balance between machine and humanity. As for my dream about life sciences, I want to apply life sciences to make my motherland a healthier place.

Qingyi Wang: I want to know as many plants as possible, as well as their uses! I think being a botanist is very cool, and will be of great advantage when trapped in the wild, like the ones in Man vs. Wild.

Linhan Li: Life sciences inspire us to explore our own body. I also have a fantasy that biological science may help us to become better people by introducing other people’s strength and dismissing our own disadvantages.

Lengran Geng First of all, I feel very grateful for the biological research, because a large part of our life today is based on the development of it. Some of my family members have devoted their life to this great career and I’m very looking forward to follow their path.

Ming Yang: I’m now learning biology because I’m interested in psychological sciences. I learned from a lecture that a main interest of today’s psychological research is the human brain. So, I think it will help me to address psychological questions better if I know the biological basis of the brain. I want to know how consciousness forms. Why do people sleep? What is a dream?

Yuxin Jia: From my perspective, biological science is very cool and I have been wishing to learn about medicine ever since I was a little girl. There are two suns in my drawing. The first one represents that I think life sciences are rapidly developing, just like the rising sun. The second sun stands for that the biological research is greatly promoting the medical treatment, making it possible to create a healthier planet.