EP8: Shenzhen is an ideal place for biomedicine development

EP8: Shenzhen is an ideal place for biomedicine development

Peter E. Lobi, Professor at Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute

Shenzhen's rapid development couldn’t have happened without an accurate grasp of the trend of the times. Looking back on the 40 years of ups and downs, Shenzhen has faced up to difficulties one after another, transformed itself multiple times and moved forward firmly on the road of optimizing industrial institutions and promoting industrial upgrading. In the first half of this year, Shenzhen issued “1+3” heavyweight policies for the concentration and development of biopharmaceutical industry. In the future, the city will accelerate the construction of industrial clusters such as Pingshan Biopharmaceutical Technology Industrial City and Dapeng International Biological Valley, and vigorously promote development and manufacturing of high-end medical devices and innovative drugs, with an aim to build the biomedical industry into a new growth pole. Shenzhen is also striving to achieve a 200 billion yuan worth of output for biomedical industry by 2025, and become a leading player for biomedical industry both domestically and internationally.

No master plan can be materialized without intellectual support of top talents. Peter E. Lobie from Australia is one such talent. Now a full-time professor at Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Peter E. Lobie is a world-leading figure in cancer research on human growth hormone. He has long been committed to the research of targeted cancer therapy, and made ground-breaking research in carcinogenic mechanism of tumor-related growth factors. In his view, Shenzhen is still in a stage of rapid development, and the government and academic circle have provided strong support for scientific research. The city can be described as an ideal place for biomedicine development. From Australia to Sweden, Singapore, New Zealand, and then to Shenzhen, China, Peter E. Lobie, a global scientist, has led his team in vigorous global cooperation with Shenzhen at the core, and knitting research and industry closer together, so as to make their contribution to the health and development of mankind.

“The research environment in Shenzhen is very exciting and also very interesting. It’s developing, which makes it a very exciting place to be. It means there are opportunities available that may not be available elsewhere in the world. I remember once when I was a young junior faculty, a senior professor, said to me, in your field, Peter, you need to be in a place that’s growing. So that’s what makes Shenzhen quite special for this period of its development

I first visited Shenzhen in 2009. I think and finally decided to come here full time in 2016 and arrived here full time in 2017. So I work in the biomedical field. I’m a professor at the Tsinghua-Berkeley-Shenzhen Institute. So at the moment, I’m the director of the Center for Precision Medicine and Healthcare. So in my laboratory, we work on the intersection of two medical specialties. One is endocrinology, which is the study of hormones. And the other one is oncology, which is the study or practice of cancer and cancer treatment. So the aim of my laboratory at the moment is really to develop novel therapeutics, new ways that we can treat difficult to treat cancers, and thereby improve the survival and quality of life outcomes for patients with cancer.

So we have already contributed somewhat to the knowledge of medicine. The work we have done previously is already in the medical textbooks. But what we are trying to do now is to translate that body of knowledge. It’s taken 20 or 30 years even into clinical practice. So to do that, we’ve worked out various ways and with collaborations in different parts of the country and in different parts of the world. And to do that, we have to interact a lot with the pharmaceutical industry.

In Shenzhen, there’s a lot of very competent and experienced people in the industry. I think what the industry has to do is reach a critical mass, so that there’s a lot more interaction between academia and industry. So the future of the industry and where the real breakthrough is made is to develop first-in-class drugs. It requires a lot of innovation science. We had the former head of the World Health Organization here the other day and she also said, only about 6% success of any program, but we have to try. So there has to be an appreciation that failing, failing is not necessarily a failure. 

I saw Shenzhen as an ideal place to be able to develop the programs. The support offered both by the university which I am affiliated with Tsinghua University and also the Shenzhen government encouraged me a lot to move. Shenzhen is an exciting place to be and has lots of opportunities. So the specialty of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone is due to government policies realistically. And so it being these policies which have enabled the special economic zone to progress and develop so quickly and to such a high standard.”

第八集 深圳是开发生物医药项目的理想之地

清华-伯克利深圳学院教授 Peter E. Lobie

深圳的高速发展离不开对时代脉搏的准确把握。回顾过去四十年的风雨历程，深圳不断迎难而上，数次华丽转身，在优化产业机构、促进产业升级的路上坚定向前。今年上半年，深圳发布生物医药产业集聚发展“1＋3”重磅政策文件，未来将加快推进坪山生物医药科技产业城、大鹏国际生物谷等产业聚集区建设，大力发展高端医疗器械、创新药物等研发制造，把生物医药产业打造成为新的经济增长极，力争到2025年生物医药产业总产值达到2000亿元，建成国内领先、国际一流的生物医药产业集聚发展高地。

任何宏图的描绘，都离不开高质量人才的智力支撑，来自澳大利亚的Peter E. Lobie就是这宏图背后的一员。Peter E. Lobie现任清华-伯克利深圳学院全时长聘教授，长期致力于研究癌症靶向治疗，特别是在肿瘤相关生长因子的致癌机制中做出了开创性研究，是世界癌症领域研究人生长激素的领军人物。在他看来，深圳仍然处于高速发展阶段，政府与学界都对科研给予大力支持，可谓开发生物医药项目的理想之地。从澳大利亚到瑞典，从新加坡到新西兰，再到中国深圳……Peter E. Lobie这位带着全球化标签的科学家带领他的团队以深圳为圆心，大力开展全球合作，加强科研与产业的互动，为人类的健康发展做出自己的贡献。

“深圳的研究环境非常令人振奋，也很有趣。（深圳）是一座处于发展中的城市，所以能来到这里非常令人兴奋。这意味着这里提供了很多或许在全世界其他地方无法提供的机遇。我还记得当自己还是个年轻的初级教员时，一位高级教授对我说：‘Peter 你需要寻找一个正在成长的地方来发展你的领域。’ 而这正是令深圳特别的地方，因为它仍然处于发展期。

我记得自己是2009年第一次来深圳的。最终我在2016年决定移居深圳，并于2017年实现了这个愿望。我从事的是生物医药行业，我是清华-伯克利深圳学院的一名教授。我现在是精准医学与保健研究中心主任。在我的实验室里，我们的研究领域是两个医学专业的交点：一个是内分泌学，研究对象是激素；另一个是肿瘤学，也就是研究癌症和癌症医疗实践的学科。我的实验室目前的工作是开发出创新疗法，用新的方法来治疗肿瘤，提高癌症患者的存活率以及他们的生活质量。

我们已经在某种程度上对医学知识做出了贡献。我们此前的工作已经被写入了医学教科书，但我们目前要做的是知识的转化，这些知识需要20甚至30年的时间才能变成临床实践。为了达到这个目的，我们通过各种途径，同这个国家以及全世界不同地区和机构展开合作。为了做到这一点，我们必须和制药行业展开频繁互动。

深圳在这个行业已经拥有了很多非常有能力且经验丰富的人才。我认为这个行业要做的就是达到一个临界点，这样在学术和行业之间就会有更多的互动，实现真正的突破点，就是要研发首创药，这就需要大量创新科学。世界卫生组织前总干事前几天也在这里。她也说到，任何项目都只有6%的成功率，但我们必须去尝试，必须有接受失败的勇气，失败是成功之母。

我将深圳视为一个适合开发项目的理想之地，来自清华大学和深圳市政府的支持让我获得了很多选择来到这里的勇气。深圳是一个令人兴奋的地方，而且提供了大量机会。深圳经济特区的特色实际上取决于政府政策，正是这些政策使经济特区前进发展如此之快，达到这么高的标准。”