At 12 o'clock on January 22, 2020, 10 hours before the lockdown of Wuhan, Zhou Xin took the last flight from Beijing to Wuhan on that day
"Wuhan has an infectious disease and the city is about to be closed.
"Our self-developed human lung gas magnetic resonance imaging technology and equipment may play a role.
Zhou Xin is a researcher at the Institute of Precision Measurement Science and Technology Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Precision Measurement).
He firmly said, "Incorporating personal ideals into the country's development cause will surely accelerate the realization of the great dream of a powerful country through science and technology
"Light up" the lungs and "light up" the patient
"Light up" the lungs and "light up" the patient Zhou Xin arrived in Wuhan early in the morning on the day the city was closed, and was always concerned about the global epidemic data deduction and research trends
Zhou Xin submitted the "War Request" to the organization as soon as possible , hoping to "join the war" with lung gas magnetic resonance imaging equipment.
Chinese Academy of Sciences In the hospital, Zhou Xin and his team members worked in protective clothing for 16 to 7 hours a day.
Through research, it is found that although the lung CT images and insufflation pulmonary function parameters of patients discharged from the hospital with common diseases are not abnormal, the images of the gas magnetic resonance imaging equipment show that the ventilation function is slightly damaged, and the blood exchange function is obviously impaired.
The research results are highly concerned by international colleagues
"Light up" every corner of the lungs, understand the lack of human lung function, and "understand" the information about the exchange of gas and gas, and the exchange of gas and blood in the lungs, so that the disease "killer" has nowhere to hide.
Zhou Xin's research and development of this instrument stems from the extensive needs of our people's lives and health
Zhou Xin told China Science Daily that conventional lung imaging methods include chest X-ray, CT, and PET technologies, but these technologies all have ionizing radiation
"It's because the MRI signal comes from the water protons in the human body.
It has always been Zhou Xin's wish to "light up" the lungs and solve the problem that traditional MRI can not clearly image the lung cavity
"Ten Years" of Struggle, "Currently" Make Efforts
"Ten Years" of Struggle, "Currently" Make Efforts The "ten minutes on stage" of the lung gas magnetic resonance imaging equipment is behind the hard work of Zhou Xin and the "ten years of work" led by the team
.
In 2009, Zhou Xin returned to China soon
.
One person is a team.
His "laboratory" occupies the "6 floor tiles" in the institute's lobby.
The design of the experiment scheme, the installation and commissioning of experimental equipment, and even the fixing of a screw are all done by themselves.
It is normal to work until the early hours of the morning.
.
In January 2011, Zhou Xin received the support of the National Youth Science Fund project to complete a comprehensive survey of magnetic resonance signal enhancement methods, and independently developed a set of remote detection magnetic resonance devices, which can further improve the detection sensitivity of magnetic resonance.
The research has laid the relevant theoretical foundation for the development of the instrument
.
Subsequently, the National Natural Science Foundation of China encouraged scientists to support original and original scientific research based on national strategic needs, and set up a special project for the development of major national scientific research equipment (recommended by ministries and commissions)
.
In January 2013, Zhou Xin, as a special chief scientist, took the lead in researching a major national instrument project-"Magnetic Resonance Imaging Instrument System for Research on Human Lung Diseases"
.
Zhou Xin discovered that xenon gas is an inert gas with good biological inertness, fat solubility and chemical shift sensitivity.
It can be dissolved in the blood and tissues of the lungs, and has unique advantages in the blood-to-air exchange function of the lungs.
After repeated investigations, xenon was finally selected as the gas contrast agent
.
However, ordinary xenon gas is not enough to "light up" the lungs.
The key is to "hyperpolarize" it, that is, to enhance the signal strength of the gas.
This is also the difficulty of the entire study
.
"Everyone has water in the body, and each proton in the water molecule has a spin, just like a microscopic
"gyro".
The "gyro" that rotates clockwise has its spin upward; the "gyro" that rotates counterclockwise.
", its spin is down, and one upward and one downward spin cancel each other out the magnetic moment.
Generally, out of about one million proton spins, only one spin really contributes to the magnetic signal, so in the normal state, the proton The magnetic signal is very weak
.
" Zhou Xin pioneered the development of hyperpolarized gas magnetic resonance technology to make the "gyro" of the nuclear spins in the microscopic world rotate in one direction, thereby greatly enhancing the gas magnetic signal and making the lung gas "visible" "It is possible
.
At the same time, Zhou Xin's team also extended the frequency of MRI transmission and reception to nuclei of multiple elements, realizing multi-nuclear magnetic resonance imaging
.
In addition, through the combination of artificial intelligence and compressed sensing under-sampling technology, an adaptive high-power under-sampling mode for human lung imaging is designed, which increases the dynamic sampling speed of the signal to a maximum of 10 times on the original basis, realizing the world’s highest Fast high-resolution dynamic sampling of human lung gas
.
From a team of one person to 70 people, from "six floor tiles" to a dedicated laboratory, Zhou Xin led the team to live up to expectations and achieved a breakthrough in China's lung gas magnetic resonance technology from scratch, effectively solving the lung structure The scientific problems behind the non-destructive, quantitative, and visual detection bottleneck technology of the harmony function broke the foreign technology blockade, and the core technical indicators are internationally leading
.
Persist in studying the "I" of a powerful country
Persist in studying the "I" of a powerful country Zhou Xin said that the successful development of medical instruments and the use of them for civilian use are inseparable from the personalized project guidance of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
.
The instrument project involves physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and other multi-disciplinary cross-disciplinary research.
The Department of Medical Science organizes an annual exchange meeting every year, inviting experts from different fields to the meeting for on-site guidance, discussion and exchange, and specifically invited More than 100 well-known imaging experts and clinicians in the country went to the instrument development and testing site to guide, and jointly optimize the performance indicators of the instrument
.
"Instrument is a tool for understanding the world.
" The scientific development history of the past 100 years has shown that major scientific innovations and the development of research fields are often guided by breakthroughs in scientific instruments and technical means
.
"Major breakthroughs in modern science and technology are increasingly dependent on advanced scientific instruments.
Whoever has mastered the most advanced scientific instrument research and development technology will have the initiative in scientific and technological development
.
" Zhou Xin said
.
In the 1990s, Zhou Xin read an article when he was a first-year graduate student at the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (the predecessor of the Institute of Precision).
In this world, for example, it is with a microscope that people can see the true contents of cells, bacteria, etc.
, and play an important role in the prevention and treatment of diseases
.
" Since then, he has realized the importance of scientific instruments and focused on improving Skills in developing instruments
.
Chinese Academy of Sciences At that time, because the imported instruments were expensive, they used old magnetic resonance instruments.
The “strike” of the instruments was a “common meal”.
However, it was expensive and the waiting time was long to ask foreign experts to repair them.
Zhou Xin and the engineers in the institute just Do it yourself with the instructions
.
"During the five years of my Ph.
D.
, I have basically been repairing instruments and reforming instrument functions
.
" Zhou Xin said that in the process, he learned a lot of technology and knowledge, and has a good understanding of the function of each component, how to optimize and the principle of instrument operation, etc.
To gain an in-depth understanding, “it takes a long time to calm down and get inside before you can really learn something
.
”
Zhou Xin had not slept for three consecutive days and three nights in order to repair an old 80MHz magnetic resonance spectrometer.
The repair process took a whole year
.
But the "price" he paid did not stop there.
Two months before the graduation defense, Zhou Xin had not published a paper, while other students had papers as early as the third and fourth years
.
To his surprise, one month before the defense, he published 3 consecutive high-level papers based on research and development equipment, "Maybe I can't publish articles, but I firmly believed that I could learn a skill to guarantee the bottom
.
These experiences told me to persevere.
Most importantly, once the bottleneck is broken through persistence, scientific research will surely yield results
.
"
Nowadays, Zhou Xin often tells students that doing scientific research must combine personal interests with major scientific issues and social needs, face the major needs of the country and society, effectively solve practical problems to give back to the society, and maximize the trend of national progress.
Give full play to personal values and truly realize the "Chinese Dream" of scientific researchers in the new era
.
At home, Zhou Xin often looked out of the window, and the phrase "worries and worries before the world, and joy after the world" from the Yueyang Tower on the opposite bank of his hometown in middle school reminded him the direction and goal of his progress
.
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