In the afternoon of April 23rd, Dr. Xu Xinpeng, Assistant Professor of Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology visited Shenzhen Longcheng Middle School and gave a scientific lecture to about 100 Grade 11 students “Animal cells use physical forces for communications”.

At the beginning of the lecture, Dr. Xu addressed the importance of studying physics. As a professor of physics, Dr. Xu hoped more students in middle school can pay attention to physics. He quoted one saying from Ernest Rutherford, a distinguished British physicist, All science is either physics or stamp collecting, to remind the fundamental importance of physics in scientific researches.

Dr. Xu introduced Technion and GTIIT briefly and later commenced the main topic. Dr. Xu explained the discovery that animal cells can modify its properties according to environment changes, just like a “Thinking” silly putty.”Animal cells also have ’sense of touch’ and they actively contract the surrounding materials, sense their changes and respond accordingly.  said Dr. Xu.   “Animal cells can communicate with each other in long distance through matrix.”

At the post-lecture Q&A session, one student asked how these scientific discoveries could serve the research and development of new methods of cancer therapy. Dr. Xu explained  “If we can understand how cancer cells interact with their mechanical environment, we can modify the physical properties of the microenvironment of cancer cells to trap them from migration. “

Another student asked whether there would be the same phenomena and rules in plant cells. Dr. Xu explained that because plant cells had cell walls, their communication and response ability to environments were greatly limited, and thus the interactions that occur on animal cells might not be significant and important on plant cells.

The Q&A session showed that students attended this lecture overall   had a high level of English. They were able to understand  lectures fully conducted in English. They showed strong capability of learningnew knowledge. The lecture was very well received..

 “ Inspired and encouraged by my postdoctoral supervisor Professor. Samuel Safran at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel that I began to try to promote some basic concepts and ideas in soft matter and biological physics to high school students in a simple way.” Dr. Xu said, “ The easy-to-understand way allows high school students to understand and appreciate the significance and importance of new scientific discoveries and new developments.”

Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology wishes to promote cutting edge scientific discoveries to high school students by bringing  science lectures to secondary schools.  These lectures may stimulate their enthusiasm to learn science and technology and to  develop motivations and goals to serve the societyby creating the future with technological innovation.

Text/Photos: GTIIT Admissions Office