Fu Qiaomei, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences——
"What attracts me most about doing scientific research is exploring the unknown" (Striver is Youth)
"I am Chinese, and I have the responsibility to study the evolutionary history of East Asians, especially the Chinese." In 2010, Fu Qiaomei began to be responsible for the establishment of the Sino-German Joint Laboratory Ancient DNA Platform.
In 2016, she served as Director of the Ancient DNA Laboratory of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
At that time, the young researcher, who had just turned 32 years old, led the newly formed scientific research team to overcome difficulties and made continuous breakthroughs in the study of population evolution in East Asia, and achieved results that impress the international counterparts.
Unraveling ancient mysteries with emerging technologies
Before the advent of ancient DNA technology, human evolution research mainly used two methods: one is the method of physical anthropology, and the other is to use the DNA of today's modern people to trace the origin.
Both methods have certain limitations. The former stays at the morphological level, while the latter cannot capture the DNA information of those human populations that have disappeared.
Ancient DNA technology came into being in the 1980s, and it has flourished since the beginning of this century.
"Ancient DNA technology is a method developed based on modern molecular biology technology to extract and analyze ancient DNA information from ancient human, animal and plant remains." Fu Qiaomei said that this technology solves many problems that cannot be solved by traditional methods.
"With the help of ancient DNA technology, we can directly observe the genetic composition of ancient individuals and the promiscuous pattern of genes, and the individual ancient DNA data itself and its data set can reflect the genetic characteristics of the population to a large extent, which is a useful tool for the study of ancient individuals in different regions. A weapon for the evolutionary characteristics and dynamic changes of human and modern humans."
Don't be afraid of challenges and work hard
Using ancient DNA technology to capture endogenous DNA from ancient biological samples is no easy task: DNA fragments in biological remains become fragmented and extremely low in content after a long period of natural degradation, making extraction difficult; the warm and humid climate makes the preservation of DNA in samples The situation is even worse; the massive invasion and contamination of microbial DNA makes the extraction of endogenous DNA even more difficult.
Fu Qiaomei led the team to continue to tackle key problems, and finally jointly developed the ancient nuclear genome capture technology with international colleagues.
This technology can adsorb, separate, enrich and extract only 0.03% of human DNA from the DNA of a large number of microorganisms.
Developing a new technology is only the first step.
Using ancient DNA to study human evolution is inseparable from the close collaboration with archaeology, bioinformatics, population genetics and other disciplines. Fu Qiaomei faces many challenges.
In recent years, she has led the team to explore and work hard, constantly refreshing mankind's understanding of its own history.
In 2016, Fu Qiaomei's team cooperated with an international team to publish the ancient genome research results of 51 Eurasian human individuals in the last ice age in the journal Nature, and accurately mapped the dynamic genetic history of the Eurasian population during the ice age.
What really opened up the research on the evolution of East Asian populations was Fu Qiaomei's acquisition and analysis of the Tianyuandong human genome.
In 2013, Fu Qiaomei developed a new technology to obtain part of the genetic information of Tianyuandong people.
In 2017, she captured a relatively complete genome sequence and sequenced it precisely.
This is the first ancient human genome in China and the earliest modern human genome in East Asia so far.
In 2020, "Science" magazine successively reported the large-scale and systematic ancient genome research results of Fu Qiaomei's team and collaborators on the populations of northern and southern China, as well as the first case of Denisovan in East Asia obtained from a site on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A new breakthrough in ancient human DNA.
The former clarifies the north-south differentiation pattern and migration evolution history of modern populations in China over the past 10,000 years, while the latter proves the spatial and temporal distribution of Denisovan hominins for the first time from a genetic point of view.
In 2021, the journal "Cell" twice published the ancient genome research results of Fu Qiaomei's team and collaborators on East Asian populations on long time scales.
By analyzing the ancient human genomes in Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Fujian and other places in my country from about 40,000 to 300 years ago, the researchers revealed the dynamic genetic history of East Asian populations over the past 40,000 years and the selection mechanism of unique adaptive genes.
These studies provide important information on the genetics, evolution, and adaptation of humans in East Asia, especially ancient China, and provide enlightenment for answering Chinese questions such as "who am I" and "where do I come from".
Exploration is more than striving forward
Get up at 5 or 6 in the morning and think about the research plan for the whole day; in the gap between meetings or on a business trip, turn on the computer and enter the work mode... "Non-stop" is a true portrayal of Fu Qiaomei's work.
"It's hard to do scientific research, but I don't find it hard," she said. "What attracts me most about doing scientific research is exploring the unknown. Through my own efforts, I am very happy to let everyone understand those ancient mysteries."
The average age of Fu Qiaomei's scientific research team is only 30 years old, and she has won glory for the country with technological innovation and independent research.
Last year, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the publication of the draft of the human genome, Fu Qiaomei was invited by the special issue of "Science" to lead the publication of a research review in the field of human ancient genomes, and for the first time systematically sorted out the migration and communication dynamics and genetic evolution of ancient populations around the world over the past tens of thousands of years. The pattern highlights my country's important contribution to updating and enriching the history of human origin and evolution.
"Our research has only uncovered the tip of the iceberg." Fu Qiaomei is leading the young team to continue to work hard and continue to write the East Asian chapter in the history of human evolution.
Our reporter Zhao Yongxin