哈佛首位大陸畢業(yè)生代表何江在哈佛畢業(yè)典禮的演講

美國東部時間2016年5月26日上午10點，哈佛生物系博士畢業(yè)生何江作為哈佛研究生優(yōu)秀畢業(yè)生代表演講。何江是哈佛第一位享此殊榮的中國大陸學生。與他同臺演講的特邀嘉賓是著名導演史蒂芬·斯皮爾伯格。

這位在中國湖南農村長大、上大學才第一次進城的中國學生，家里經(jīng)濟條件一般，母親甚至不識字。但憑借自己的努力，何江本科在中國科技大學獲得了最高榮譽獎——郭沫若獎學金，隨后他進入哈佛大學碩博連讀，畢業(yè)后將赴麻省理工學院進行博士后研究。

何江在演講中介紹了中醫(yī)在中國農村發(fā)揮的作用，以一個理科生的角度反思科技知識和技術在社會上不均衡的分布，以及如何將自己研究的科技技術，更廣泛地傳遞到世界不同地方。

正如他所言，教育能夠改變一個人的生活軌跡，能把人從一個世界帶到另一個不同的世界。

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The Spider’s Bite

蜘蛛咬傷軼事

When I was in middle school, a poisonous spider bit my right hand. I ran to my mom for help—but instead of taking me to a doctor, my mom set my hand on fire.

在我讀初中的時候，有一次，一只毒蜘蛛咬傷了我的右手。我問我媽媽該怎么處理---我媽媽并沒有帶我去看醫(yī)生，她而是決定用火療的方法治療我的傷口。

After wrapping my hand with several layers of cotton, then soaking it in wine, she put a chopstick into my mouth,and ignited the cotton. Heat quickly penetrated the cotton and began to roast my hand. The searing pain made me want to scream, but the chopstick prevented it. All I could do was watch my hand burn - one minute, then two minutes –until mom put out the fire.

她在我的手上包了好幾層棉花，棉花上噴撒了白酒，在我的嘴里放了一雙筷子，然后打火點燃了棉花。熱量逐漸滲透過棉花，開始炙烤我的右手。灼燒的疼痛讓我忍不住想喊叫，可嘴里的筷子卻讓我發(fā)不出聲來。我只能看著我的手被火燒著，一分鐘，兩分鐘，直到媽媽熄滅了火苗。

You see, the part of China I grew up in was a rural village, and at that time pre-industrial. When I was born, my village had no cars, no telephones, no electricity, not even running water. And we certainly didn’t have access to modern medical resources. There was no doctor my mother could bring me to see about my spider bite.

你看，我在中國的農村長大，在那個時候，我的村莊還是一個類似前工業(yè)時代的傳統(tǒng)村落。在我出生的時候，我的村子里面沒有汽車，沒有電話，沒有電，甚至也沒有自來水。我們自然不能輕易的獲得先進的現(xiàn)代醫(yī)療資源。那個時候也沒有一個合適的醫(yī)生可以來幫我處理蜘蛛咬傷的傷口。

For those who study biology, you may have grasped the science behind my mom’s cure: heat deactivates proteins, and a spider’s venom is simply a form of protein. It’s cool how that folk remedy actually incorporates basic biochemistry, isn’t it? But I am a PhD student in biochemistry at Harvard, I now know that better, less painful and less risky treatments existed. So I can’t help but ask myself, why I didn’t receive one at the time?

在座的如果有生物背景的人，你們或許已經(jīng)理解到了我媽媽使用的這個簡單的治療手段的基本原理：高熱可以讓蛋白質變性，而蜘蛛的毒液也是一種蛋白質。這樣一種傳統(tǒng)的土方法實際上有它一定的理論依據(jù)，想來也是挺有意思的。但是，作為哈佛大學生物化學的博士，我現(xiàn)在知道在我初中那個時候，已經(jīng)有更好的，沒有那么痛苦的，也沒有那么有風險的治療方法了。于是我便忍不住會問自己，為什么我在當時沒有能夠享用到這些更為先進的治療方法呢?

Fifteen years have passed since that incident. I am happy to report that my hand is fine. But this question lingers, and I continue to be troubled by the unequal distribution of scientific knowledge throughout the world. We have learned to edit the human genome and unlock many secrets of how cancer progresses. We can manipulate neuronal activity literally with the switch of a light. Each year brings more advances in biomedical research-exciting, transformative accomplishments.

蜘蛛咬傷的事故已經(jīng)過去大概十五年了。我非常高興的向在座的各位報告一下，我的手還是完好的。但是，我剛剛提到的這個問題這些年來一直停在我的腦海中，而我也時不時會因為先進科技知識在世界上不同地區(qū)的不平等分布而困擾?，F(xiàn)如今，我們人類已經(jīng)學會怎么進行人類基因編輯了，也研究清楚了很多個癌癥發(fā)生發(fā)展的原因。我們甚至可以利用一束光來控制我們大腦內神經(jīng)元的活動。每年生物醫(yī)學的研究都會給我們帶來不一樣突破和進步——其中有不少令人振奮，也極具革命顛覆性的成果。

Yet, despite the knowledge we have amassed, we haven’t been so successful in deploying it to where it’s needed most. According to the World Bank, twelve percent of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. Malnutrition kills more than 3 million children annually. Three hundred million people are afflicted by malaria globally. All over the world, we constantly see these problems of poverty, illness, and lack of resources impeding the flow of scientific information. Lifesaving knowledge we take for granted in the modern world is often unavailable in these underdeveloped regions.And in far too many places, people are still essentially trying to cure a spider bite with fire.

然而，盡管我們人類已經(jīng)在科研上有了無數(shù)的建樹，在怎樣把這些最前沿的科學研究帶到世界最需要該技術的地區(qū)這件事情上，我們有時做的差強人意。世界銀行的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，世界上大約有12%的人口每天的生活水平仍然低于2美元。營養(yǎng)不良每年導致三百萬兒童死亡。將近3億人口仍然受到瘧疾的干擾。在世界各地，我們經(jīng)?？吹筋愃频挠韶毟F，疾病和自然匱乏導致的科學知識傳播的受阻。現(xiàn)代社會里習以為常的那些救生常識經(jīng)常在這些欠發(fā)達或不發(fā)達地區(qū)未能普及。于是，在世界上仍有很多地區(qū)，人們只能依賴于用火療這一簡單粗暴的方式來治理蜘蛛咬傷事故。

While studying at Harvard, I saw how scientific knowledge can help others in simple, yet profound ways. The bird flu pandemic in the 2000s looked to my village like a spell cast by demons. Our folk medicine didn’t even have half-measures to offer. What’s more, farmers didn’t know the difference between common cold and flu; they didn’t understand that the flu was much more lethal than the common cold. Most people were also unaware that the virus could transmit across different species.

在哈佛讀書期間，我有切身體會到先進的科技知識能夠既簡單又深遠的幫助到社會上很多的人。本世紀初的時候，禽流感在亞洲多個國家肆虐。那個時候，村莊里的農民聽到禽流感就像聽到惡魔施咒一樣，對其特別的恐懼。鄉(xiāng)村的土醫(yī)療方法對這樣一個疾病也是束手無策。農民對于普通感冒和流感的區(qū)別并不是很清楚，他們并不懂得流感比普通感冒可能更加致命。而且，大部分人對于科學家所發(fā)現(xiàn)的流感病毒能夠跨不同物種傳播這一事實并不清楚。

So when I realized that simple hygiene practices like separating different animal species could contain the spread of the disease, and that I could help make this knowledge available to my village, that was my first “Aha” moment as a budding scientist. But it was more than that: it was also a vital inflection point in my own ethical development, my own self-understanding as a member of the global community.

于是，在我意識到這些知識背景，及簡單的將受感染的不同物種隔離開來以減緩疾病傳播，并決定將這些知識傳遞到我的村莊時，我的心里第一次有了一種作為未來科學家的使命感。但這種使命感不只停在知識層面，它也是我個人道德發(fā)展的重要轉折點，我自我理解的作為國際社會一員的責任感。