20 LIFE Friday, December 9, 2016 CHINA DAILY

EXPAT EXPERT

ON A HERBAL ROUTECanadian biologistYaacov Ben­Davidand his Guizhou teamare isolating TCMcomponents forcancer research,Liu Xiangrui reports.

S ince Canadian biolo­gist Yaacov Ben­Da­vid put down roots inSouthwest China’s

Guizhou province, he hasbeen driven by a desire tounderstand how traditionalChinese medicine works.

Ben­David, 61, was born inIran and received his PhD inmolecular immunologyfrom Hebrew University inIsrael, in 1987.

He worked for the Univer­sity of Toronto for more than20 years since the early1990s and also served as asenior scientist at the Sunny­brook Research Institute inthe Canadian city for years.

“If we find out what arethe active compounds thatactually help in TCM, thenwe have already translated it(the result) and the entireworld will benefit,” says Ben­David.

He is now the director of atumor pharmacologyresearch unit at Guizhou’sKey Laboratory of Chemistryfor Natural Products, anaffiliate of the Chinese Acad­emy of Sciences.

The Sunnybrook ResearchInstitute in Canada, wherehe worked earlier, has suc­cessfully identified onco­genes and tumor suppressorgenes that have mutated invarious forms of cancers.

In recent years, Ben­Da­vid turned his attention tostudying the developmentof compounds and drugsthat can be used to fight can­cer.

He saw opportunities forbreakthrough research inGuizhou when he first visit­ed the laboratory in provin­cial capital Guiyang forlectures in 2013.

“I saw how I could make adifference here,” says Ben­David of his decision to workin Guiyang.

“I am a biologist and theyhave chemists. They extractcompounds from TCM andthere has to be somebody tounderstand their functions.That is my expertise.”

The province has suitablesoil and air for the growth ofherbs for TCM. The region ishome to many ethnicgroups, such as the Miaopeople who have used TCMfor long.

Since 2013, Guizhou hasinvested about 200 millionyuan ($29.4 million) annual­ly to support the TCM indus­try.

Foreign professionals likeBen­David are also beingsought by the province as it

looks to drive research andinnovation.

Few studies have beendone on natural compoundsextracted from TCM whilemany compounds used inWestern medicine havealready been analyzed.

“Here I have access toeverything new and locallysourced,” he says, adding thatChinese scientist Tu Youyou,who won last year’s NobelPrize in medicine for herresearch on an antimalarial

substance, is an inspirationfor him.

Although ancient, TCM isstill not widely accepted glo­bally because not many stud­ies have been done on it.

He hopes to change the sit­uation with his work, hesays.

“Chemists can modify anddevelop TCM to make it bet­ter if we know how itworks.”

In2014, theGuizhou labora­tory’s program was included

in the One Thousand ForeignExperts project, which wasinitiated by the central gov­ernment in 2011 to invite for­eign specialists to the countryover a decade or so. Theproject provides grants toqualified candidates.

In this case, the laboratoryhas been given more than 10million yuan to facilitate drugresearch by both the centraland provincial governments.

Despite such support,Ben­David has had to dealwith challenges, includingbuilding the laboratoryfrom scratch and languagebarriers at the beginning, hesays.

It’s difficult to find enoughlocal talent, because peopleusually prefer working inbigger cities like Beijing andShanghai.

He has lost more than 10trained technicians in thepast two years, he says.

But Ben­David is glad thathe has built an international­level laboratory, which hasseen visits by high­level offi­cials, including the Ministerof Science and Technology,Wang Gang, earlier this year.

Now, Ben­David’s teamhas about 15 chemists,whose work includes isolat­ing components in TCM.

The laboratory has identi­fied some TCM components

that might be used for thetreatment of leukemia andother kinds of cancer, and afew relevant drugs are inpre­clinical development, hesays.

In addition to drug discov­ery, Ben­David’s team is alsoengaged in uncovering themolecular mechanism ofcancer progression.

In collaboration with localscientists, they are workingon understanding the molec­ular cause of diseases specif­ic to the province.

Ben­David has also takenadvantage of his wide net­work of contacts to helpGuizhou enhance its inter­national exchanges, includ­ing bringing top scientistsfor conferences.

Ben­David, who lives inGuiyang, says he enjoys lifein the city despite the dis­tance between the laborato­ry and the city center.

Having completed his firstthree years at the laboratory,Ben­David has just renewedhis contract for anotherthree.

Ben­David, who has mar­ried Yao Shaojuan, a localwoman, is learning Chineseand says he plans to stay inChina for a long time.

Contact the writer atliuxiangrui@chinadaily.com.cn

By CHEN NANchennan@chinadaily.com.cn

Chinese actress Mei Tinghas played many complexroles on screen in the past twodecades.

In the 2001 TV drama, Don’tTalk to Strangers, whichrevolves around domestic vio­lence, she was a battered wife.Then, she appeared as a mas­seuse in the film Blind Mas­sage, a big winner at the 2014Golden Horse Awards held inTaiwan.

The film also won her a bestactress nomination at the Ber­lin International Film Festivalthe same year.

Of late, Mei, 41, has added anew off­screen role as an advo­cator of children’s publichealth.

On Dec 3, which is markedas the International Day ofPersons with Disabilities, Meiappeared at the Beijing

Record Factory in a hutong(alley) to record poems alongwith children with hearingproblems.

They read poems such asFarewell to Cambridge by thelate Chinese poet Xu Zhimo.

The recordings are part of aproject called Joy Wave by Chi­na Children and Teenager’sFund, a local nonprofit found­ed in 1981.

“Motherhood has changedme. I now want to speak forunderprivileged children,”says Mei, whose daughter isaged 4 and son is 1 year old.

“I feel connected with par­ents who share anxiety abouttheir children’s health withme.”

The soft­spoken actress saysshe was short on patience ear­lier but since her childrencame along, her outlooktoward life has changed.

According to Zhu Xisheng,secretary­general of China

Children and Teenager’s Fund,among the country’s earliestfoundations to help childrenwith disabilities, there are cur­rently more than 130,000 chil­dren with hearingimpairments under the age of

6, and every year, the loss ofhearing is reported in morethan 20,000 infants.

Mei is the first celebrity tojoin the project, but more arelikely to record their voices forit, which is a good way to bring

public attention to children’shealth issues, Zhu says.

The film, Blind Massage,also gave Mei a closer view ofthe hardships faced by peoplewith disabilities.

“We spent months living

with them and they were fun­ny, smart and positivealthough they couldn’t see,”says Mei of the film’s shootingin 2012.

Mei met her photographerhusband, Zeng Jian, on thesets of the movie. They gotmarried in 2012. The couplewill work on a new film nextyear.

Previously, Mei was marriedto film director Yan Po.

Born in Nanjing, East Chi­na’s Jiangsu province, Meijoined a children’s dancetroupe when she was 7. A fewyears later she became a pro­fessional dancer with a troupeof the People’s LiberationArmy.

Subsequently she quit danc­ing and moved to acting.

In 1996, Mei was admittedto the Central Academy ofDrama in Beijing and herclassmates included ZhangZiyi and Qin Hailu, some of

the country’s best­knownactresses today.

Mei’s performance in the1997 Chinese movie, A Time ToRemember, which was direct­ed by Ye Daying and had thelate Hong Kong­based singer­actor Leslie Cheung in theco­lead role, won her the bestactress award at the CairoInternational Film Festival thefollowing year.

She didn’t finish college asmany acting opportunitiescame her way and she wantedto fully devote herself tothem.

Rather than choosing com­mercial movies or internation­al productions, Mei prefersart­house films and theaterproductions in China, whichshe says makes her feel “freeand real”.

“I am not ambitious. But theroles that attract me alwaysoffer me new insights into mywork,” she says.

ACTRESS

Mei Ting takes on new role for children with disabilities

Actress Mei Ting attends a charity event in Beijing to help children with hearing impairments.PHOTOS BY FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY

By XINHUA in Washington

Women who have an opti­mistic view on life are morelikely to live longer, a US studysaid on Wednesday. The study,published in the AmericanJournal of Epidemiology, ana­lyzed data from 2004 to 2012from 70,000 women enrolledin the Nurses’ Health Study, along­running US study track­ing women’s health via sur­veys every two years.

The researchers looked atparticipants’ levels of opti­mism and other factors thatmight play a role in how opti­mismmayaffectmortality risk,such as race, high blood pres­sure, diet and physical activity.

It found the most optimisticwomen, or the top quartile,had a nearly 30 percent lowerrisk of dying from any of thediseases analyzed in the studycompared with the least opti­mistic women, or the bottomquartile.

The most optimistic womenhad a 16 percent lower risk ofdying from cancer; 38 percentlower risk of dying from heartdisease; 39 percent lower riskof dying from stroke; 38 per­cent lower risk of dying fromrespiratory disease; and 52percent lower risk of dyingfrom infection.

Previous studies have linkedoptimism with reduced risk ofearly death from cardiovascu­lar problems, but this was thefirst to find a link betweenoptimism and reduced riskfrom other major causes.

“While most medical andpublic health efforts todayfocus on reducing risk factorsfordiseases, evidencehasbeenmounting that enhancing psy­chological resilience may alsomake a difference,” says EricKim, research fellow at theHarvard T.H. Chan School ofPublic Health and co­leadauthor of the study.

“Our new findings suggestthat we should make efforts toboost optimism, which hasbeen shown to be associatedwith healthier behaviors andhealthier ways of coping withlife challenges.”

The study also found thathealthy behaviors only partial­ly explain the link betweenoptimism and reduced mor­tality risk.

One other possibility is thathigher optimism directlyimpacts our biological sys­tems, Kim says.

PUBLIC HEALTH

Optimisticwomenlive longer,says study

Training local talent is one of Ben­David’s biggest tasks here.

Yaacov Ben­David and his research team in Guiyang. The biologist says he’s glad to have built an international­level laboratory. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

“I saw how I could make a difference here. I am a biologist and they havechemists. They extract compounds from TCM and there has to be somebodyto understand their functions. That is my expertise.”

Yaacov Ben­David, Canadian biologist, Key Laboratory of Chemistry for Natural Products in Guiyang

39 percent

lower risk of dying from strokefor optimistic women, accord­ing to a US study on how opti­mism may affect mortality risk.