On November 17th, the Greater Bay Area Science Forum 2024 officially commenced in Nansha District, Guangzhou. The event attracted over a hundred academicians and experts from diverse fields worldwide.
Barry J. Marshall, the 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, greeted the audience in Chinese during his keynote speech at the main forum. He quoted the Chinese proverb "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles" to illustrate the ongoing battle between the medical community and Helicobacter pylori.
Marshall has also employed the idiom "sleep on the brushwood and taste the gall" to motivate students. He recalled a student from Peking University who asked him why they should conduct research, given its difficulty. In response, he used the idiom to tell the student, "So you work hard so that in the future, you can remember your sufferings and appreciate your good life, hopefully."
Furthermore, he mentioned the idiom "Carve on the gunwale of a moving boat", which reminded him of students conducting experiments. Due to certain limitations, they often get stuck in experiments that are unlikely to succeed.
Reporter | Chen Jinxia
Video | Ou Nanying
Editor | Hu Nan, James, Shen He
