Her power series II UCLA Li Jingyi: the last thing women need to do is "doubt themselves"

Article reprinted Zhiyuan community
author ：Isabel、 Li Mengjia

“ If you give all female researchers a suggestion , What is it? ？”
“ Listen to your inner needs .”
Li Jingyi ,2007 Tsinghua biology graduate , UCLA （UCLA） Lifelong associate professor of the Department of Statistics ,2018 Sloan award winner , Included in the 《 MIT technology review 》“35 Technological innovation under the age of 35 people ”（Innovators Under 35）2020 List of China in .
When these dazzling labels appear on the same person , People know , This must be an extraordinary woman .
lately , Li Jingyi happened to be reading a book , yes Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg Written 《Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead》.
“LEAN IN”, That is, one step forward . Li Jingyi thinks , Instead of always thinking “ What should I do ”, It's better to think “ What do I want to do ”, Because doubting yourself is just the most meaningless .

01、 From Tsinghua to UCLA
A woman is growing up , You may hear many kinds of sounds , Li Jingyi seems to be seldom disturbed by these sounds .
“ Concentrate on scientific research , Lifelong learning , And maintain sufficient curiosity .” Her life plan is extremely clear , And never wavered .
In a sense , The reason why Li Jingyi will firmly follow the path of scientific research , The influence of two female elders in the family cannot be ignored ： Li Jingyi's grandmother was a college student before liberation , Go into medicine after graduation , She has been encouraged to read more since childhood 、 Think more . And the mother who used to be a high school math teacher , When Li Jingyi was in middle school, he returned to school to study postgraduate , Read all the way to the completion of the doctor , And stayed in the university to teach .
Maybe it was then , Li Jingyi's dream of scientific research has been preserved in his heart . later , She was escorted into Tsinghua , Then I got it again UC Berkeley's doctorate , The whole process is very smooth 、 natural .
When it comes to why I chose Tsinghua to study biology at first , Li Jingyi fell into memories ： It is self-evident that the Department of biological science and technology of Tsinghua University had the cutting-edge faculty at that time , It is definitely one of the most suitable places for life science research in China .
The deeper reason is , In Li Jingyi's opinion , There are still many unknown problems in the field of life science , There will be plenty of exploration space in the future , This made her feel a “ excited ”. Tsinghua Department of biological science and technology attaches great importance to the frontier research in the field of Molecular Biology , This atmosphere also coincides with my dream .
2007 year , Li Jingyi graduated from the Department of biological science and technology of Tsinghua University , And won the honor of excellent graduate .
After graduation, , Li Jingyi went to UC Berkeley is studying for a doctorate in biostatistics . About this learning experience , Li Jingyi mentioned a change of thought ：“ When I was an undergraduate, I felt that I needed more classes 、 Complete the examination and some basic scientific research tasks . But the scientific research work in the doctoral period needs to learn to create , Look for a question that no one has ever answered , Even eventually you may realize , There is no answer to this question . Through this process , I just changed from a student to a real researcher , Begin to regard scientific research as a profession .”
During the undergraduate period , Li Jingyi has discovered her interest in interdisciplinary , She prefers to use quantitative methods and mathematical tools to study problems in Life Sciences . But the direction during the doctoral period is equivalent to one “ Change your major ”, Many things still need to start from scratch , The recognition of her trust and potential by the two tutors , It was her greatest support at that time .
During this period , Li Jingyi also gradually accepted an idea ： Many things will come to fruition if you don't work hard , Need to overcome the idea of short-term pleasure , Focus on what you are doing , Don't pay too much attention to the return cycle .

02、 Enjoy scientific research , Enjoy the fun of uncertainty
“ I realize that there are many problems waiting to be solved in the field of life science , But it is not enough to solve the problem only by experimental means , It is more important to analyze the data after the experiment .” This seemed to be the conclusion of perceptual cognition at that time , Li Jingyi gradually proved to be completely correct in her later scientific research career .
“ Because scientific research is a kind of creative work , So there is a lot of uncertainty . In a sense , Scientific research work is hard in nature , This is true for both men and women .”
Actually , Li Jingyi enjoys this “ uncertainty ”.
She mentioned an impressive achievement ： stay UC While Berkeley was a doctoral student , Li Jingyi worked with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Mark Biggin Dr. Wang jointly studied the quantitative work of the transcription law of the center . They found that ,2011 Years published in 《Nature》 In an article on, it was the first time that the whole genome genes of mice were 4 Measurement of step , Come to the conclusion that ： Within one gene mRNA Its high or low protein content is not very representative of its high or low .
For a long time , The research community generally recognizes , Differences between different organizations , For example, brain and muscle , And the difference between healthy and unhealthy human cells , It largely depends on the change of protein abundance in cells .“ Transcription ” This controls genetic information from DNA flow RNA The process of , It is believed to play a leading role in determining the number of proteins in cells .
But in the last decade , Many studies claim , In animals ,RNA The difference in the speed of translation into proteins is a more important factor . If this article Nature The conclusion of the article is right , So many before mRNA The result is about to be overturned .
What is the right conclusion ？
source ： Li Jingyi's paper Li et al. (2015). Statistics requantitates the central dogma. Science 347(6226):1066-1067.
In the follow-up in-depth study , Li Jingyi and other researchers found , This article Nature The article seriously underestimated mRNA Correlation with protein content , Transcription is actually the most influential step in determining protein abundance .
Li Jingyi and Mark Biggin Pointed out that , In previous studies , Many of the effects that are considered to be translation steps are actually the result of experimental errors . It also points out that , Scientists need more accurate measurement and analysis methods to accurately simulate gene expression . Relevant research results 2015 Published in 《Science》 The journal , And included in undergraduate textbooks Molecular Cell Biology in .
2013 year , Li Jingyi received her doctorate in biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley , Then joined UCLA Department of statistics , At present, he leads a short name JSB（ That is, the intersection of statistics and biology ） Our lab .
Li Jingyi mentioned , At this stage, there are still many problems to be solved in biological data analysis , For example, many newly proposed calculation methods lack statistical rigor , It may hinder the repeatability and reliability of scientific discoveries . meanwhile , For the same type of data, there are usually multiple calculation methods developed for the same purpose , From the user's point of view , How to choose the appropriate calculation method is also a difficult problem .
Aiming at the existing problems in the field of biological data analysis , The team led by Li Jingyi has made many achievements ：
2020 year , Li Jingyi's research team proposed a new computing framework “Clipper”, It enables users to achieve high accuracy without calculation p Value directly controls the wig discovery rate in high-throughput data analysis . at present , The team is committed to Clipper Applied to many types of biological data analysis , For example, identify differentially expressed genes and protein binding sites at the genome-wide level .
Besides , In order to further fair the evaluation of the calculation method and optimize the experimental parameters （ Number and depth of sequenced cells ） The choice of , Li Jingyi's team has successively developed a single cell simulation data simulator scDesign and scDesign2.
In addition to the above work , Li Jingyi's team also developed a series of calculation methods for gene sequencing data , Include AIDE、PseudotimeDE、scPNMF etc. , These methods focus more on the consideration of noise in the data and the control of false positive results , Thus, researchers can more accurately analyze the full-length of the second-generation sequencing data mRNA Level analysis （AIDE) Or more reliably from single cells RNA Sequencing data mining signals ： Genes whose expression value changes with cell state （PseudotimeDE） And the gene whose expression value can distinguish the cell type （scPNMF）.
What you can see is , Quantitative research based on high-throughput biological data will play a more important role in biomedicine . The continuous improvement of experimental technology will produce more , More accurate biological data , What follows is the need for more rigorous calculation methods .
If you use one sentence to describe the intersection of statistics and Life Sciences, it is the most attractive 、 The main attraction , Li Jingyi said so ：“ Once there is a new experimental technology 、 New data types come out , There will be new problems , You are not looking for problems in a pile of old papers , Instead, I have been working on new problems . For people who have a strong ability to learn new things 、 People with strong curiosity , This is an exciting subject .”
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology in recent years , Recently, AI+ Li Jingyi was also quite surprised by the cross achievements of Biology , For example, use AI Prediction of protein structure AlphaFold2. Besides , Spatial omics data is also a promising direction for her next .
“ I often tell my students , Doing research is like a marathon , It's not a sprint , So you don't need to run faster than others for a while , I don't care what achievements I have in the moment , It's about trying to keep doing it .”

03、 brave “Lean in”
stay 《Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead》 In this book , The author says ：“ Usually, women will unconsciously hinder their development 、 Lower your expectations , It's even easy to give up work 、 Give up the possibility of greater achievement . Compared with men , The attitude of women in the workplace is still not positive enough 、 Not aggressive enough .”
From small to large , Because of the social prejudice you hear , Because of their cultural and educational environment, it's better to have different expectations for men and women , These will make it easier for women to doubt themselves more or less ：“ Should I stop doing this ？ Need it be so hard ？”
Actually , For women , Have a strong heart , Think more “ What do I want to do ”, Than always think “ What should I do ” It makes more sense to .
In Li Jingyi's opinion , Individual differences are absolutely greater than gender differences .“ One group cannot represent all women , The point is that everyone should think about it , Whether I am willing to do this in my heart . For example, choose the path of scientific research , Compared with the fun and sense of achievement , Do you think the hard work is worth it ？”
“ for instance , If everyone tells you , Girls just don't have boys to learn mathematics , If you hear this point, keep it in mind , When you learn something difficult , Maybe the first thought is 『 exactly , Because I'm a girl , So I'm not suitable 』, Maybe I won't push myself to try to figure out the problem .” This preconceived idea , In fact, it will affect your performance .
“LEAN IN” It means to take a step forward . In many cases , Women have only one step forward , To develop their potential , Expand what you thought “ impossible ”.
Besides doing research , Li Jingyi often gains something “ Interesting ” The observation of ： From a biological point of view , I am more driven by scientific problems . But statisticians and computer scientists working together are more from the perspective of computer science and data science , Pay more attention to the development of new methods , And complete the tools .
In my spare time , She will also walk out of the Laboratory , Climbing a mountain 、 Yoga and other sports , Relax yourself .

If you enjoy the process , Return may not be so important , Finally, it is easier to feel satisfied ; If you are just waiting for the return , And think the process is painful , People will easily feel disappointed . Everything in the world is like this .

04、 Li Jingyi's advice to female researchers
Whether it's men or women , There may be no one size fits all lifestyle . For female researchers , Li Jingyi also gave some suggestions on academic career and career choices .
“ I have seen many students , They are excellent all the way , But they don't know what they want to do 、 What do you want? , May not have a very strong idea , This is not a good thing for women's growth .”
Li Jingyi also belongs to “ Somebody else's child ”, But she has some extra thoughts about the way of life ：“ We may be subject to many constraints , I was taught what is right from childhood 、 What is wrong , But the most important thing is to think fully in your heart .”
No matter what occupation , Finally, I can go on or make achievements , It's all because of my passion for this profession 、 There are pursuits .“ In short , I hope women can think more about their inner needs .” Li Jingyi finally said .
Ranking List ：https://www.aminer.cn/women_in_ai?domain_ids=621de144e167d046c8d634b8