世界走走｜她的故事與妳同行
144 | Interview with Professor Chen Qianyu of National Taiwan University: Using artificial intelligence to build a genetic database in Taiwan
Text / Xiao Zihan (Contributing Writer) (Original post published on April 29, 2022)
In 2009, Taiwan's magic Go program MoGoTW and professional 9-dan chess king Zhou Junxun played three rounds of nine-way chess, and the chess king hated one game. In 2016, the South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol, who was defeated by the program AIphaGo AI developed by the British artificial intelligence company DeepMind, said in an interview with the media that he had the idea of retirement because of seeing AI that could not be defeated.
Chen Qianyu is going deeper and deeper on the AI road. Chen Qianyu, a professor at the Department of Biomechanical Engineering at National Taiwan University, is also a genetic team partner of Taiwan AI Labs. In the past two decades, he has devoted himself to studying life sciences with AI. Through effective data analysis, he has produced research results that are helpful to future medical care and agriculture.
"In the future, human beings can choose to prevent or resign according to their own genes."
"In the past 20 years, the amount of biological information has accumulated to an astonishing amount. It is no longer possible for one person to look at it with his eyes or simply organize it in Excel to complete the analysis," said Chen Qianyu.
Biotechnology has made breakthroughs in recent years. Biologists no longer study only one protein or one gene all their lives as before. With current technology, tens of thousands of genes or various changes in individuals can be seen at the same time. Including how molecules behave differently as bodily functions grow and decline.
"Therefore, with the help of information technology, through data analysis, the data can be turned into meaningful information, and then into knowledge. The entire process of decoupling requires AI technology. The economy will have a big impact.”
For example, proteins that exist in living organisms are not easy to observe, unless some time-consuming experiments are done. Since last year, AI has made a breakthrough. All protein structures can be calculated by computer, and even the entire life sciences can be calculated. be shaken.
Chen Qianyu said that research will eventually come to a key point, how does DNA change affect individual behavior? Regardless of species, once certain methods are implemented, it is not only helpful to humans, but all protein structure predictions for bacteria and viruses can be obtained.
For example, when human DNA is damaged, diseases will occur. In research, AI algorithms are used to observe how biological systems work when DNA molecules mutate? How did the problem happen? How to prevent and treat? Is there any way to save it when it happens? For example, why do some insects die when they ingest pesticides and some don't? Why do some vaccines work for some people and not for others? Why do some animals that grow at high altitudes have certain physical characteristics? These questions can be answered by analyzing DNA data through AI.
"Our research, if we can have a deeper understanding of the risk of disease, can help people choose prevention, or choose to let their fate. Now has come to a point in time, human beings can know in advance how to take this medicine according to their own genes in the future. Valid or invalid, you can choose.”
"Never give up looking for what's right for you, just like looking for a partner."
The complicated research process is quite time-consuming, and each project usually encounters difficulties. If you don't really love it, I'm afraid it will be difficult to go for twenty years.
"Actually, I studied music since I was a child." Chen Qianyu said with a smile, although she did not perform very well in performances, she found it interesting in the "music theory" full of logic. On the one hand, because her hands were not big enough, she was frustrated in the way of learning musical instruments; on the other hand, after middle school, she began to perform better in mathematics and physics than ordinary people. After second year, she transferred to the ordinary class and participated in competitions and exams all the way. , recommended to Taichung Girls' High School.
When she was admitted to university, many students had to take medical exams, but at that time, she felt that biology was a subject that had to be "memorized", and she still liked mathematics with logical thinking. Therefore, the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Taiwan University was chosen later.
After graduation, she went abroad to study at Stanford University's Institute of Electrical Engineering. After returning to China, she always thought that her future was to be an engineer. After returning to China, she first served in a hardware IC design factory. Unexpectedly, this job became an important turning point in her life.
"I found that I couldn't go to a fixed place every day and do similar things repeatedly, but I didn't learn new things very often. At that time, I realized that I like learning new things very much. I share the digested information with everyone, and through sharing I get joy from giving back. I seemed to have that trait when I was a teaching assistant during my studies, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
After working for a year, she decided to resign and returned to the campus to continue her studies. At that time, she observed that the future society will have a large demand for software engineers. Millions of transistors are designed not only by smart brains, but also by good software. Therefore, she later chose to study for the doctoral program of capital engineering at National Taiwan University, combining software and data analysis, and then embarked on the road of data science.
During her Ph.D. study, she came into contact with the knowledge of molecular biology, and found that through measurement, entering the system, and establishing a model to make predictions... The creatures that she thought depended on dead backs became very important to her. It's interesting, and it integrates mathematics and mathematics together. The two things come together and become a new field that she wants to explore.
"I feel that my real learning starts from there - to pursue what I want more clearly, to switch from passive to active learning. Not everyone has to go back to school from the workplace, but I encourage every student, should Realize that your learning will not end at a certain stage, there is still a lot to learn in life, and finding a job does not need to be all in one place, never give up looking for what is suitable for you and you also like to find a job, just like looking for a partner .And all this will not fall from the sky, you must try to know.”
[This article is not finished, see "Walking the World" for the full text: Interview with Professor Chen Qianyu of National Taiwan University: Building Taiwan's Genetic Database with Artificial Intelligence ]
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144. Interview with Professor Chen Qianyu of National Taiwan University: Using artificial intelligence to build Taiwan's genetic database
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