Science is like a detective story.

In “The Evolution of Physics,” Albert Einstein said that scientists, who explore the world, are more like readers of detective novels. Science is not established facts. It is about exploring, explaining, verifying, and constantly being innovative.

Therefore, for Gregor Mendel, the garden was the scene of his novel. He did not know what DNA was, but he had spotted the dawn of the laws of genetic inheritance.

For Einstein, the thought experiment of chasing light was his scene.

For undergraduates at Westlake University, going from the classroom to the science scene is crucial.

Undergraduates in a chemistry lab

From high school to university, you need to undergo this most critical transition - from receiving knowledge to participating in its development. This is inherent in undergraduate research training. It is not a lab class. It will not just teach you how to use an apparatus to repeat an experiment that already has clear results.

It's completely different.

You must put yourself at the forefront of scientific research. Neither your advisor nor your seniors will tell you the definitive answer. You will have to consult the literature to fill in the gaps and to understand where a specific academic question fits within the streams of science.

You have to think independently. All your past summaries and experiences may not necessarily solve the scientific problems you encounter. In the face of mixed experiment data, you need to be even more careful and insightful.

You need the courage to ask questions. The ability to ask good questions stems from preparation. You need to know what is critical, important, and valuable.

You can also use the most cutting-edge research equipment in the field of science to assist in your hands-on exploration. All of Westlake University’s national and provincial key laboratories and public research facilities and platforms are open to undergraduates.

"In essence, this is not training in scientific skills but in innovative thinking," said Xu Yiming Chair Professor Li Deng, who is also the director of the Academic Committee and a vice president of Westlake University.

Initially, the results cannot be seen, and perhaps there is only the barest outline of the possibilities. But you have to learn to feel your way forward in the darkness, until you find the light.

This ability to explore the unknown not only applies to scientific research. One day, when you start working, it will help you deal with more complex matters for the purpose of innovation.

Sheng Mao: ‘Detecting’ the Mystery of Life with Codes

When Sheng Mao entered Prof. Jian Yang's lab, he was often confused, despite having taken university biology courses, and felt the "100-year time lag" within the development of biology. For example, when RNA is introduced in biology class, the data level of the RNA transcriptome in cells is being discussed. Theories and practice differ greatly. Mao is exposed to both the headwaters and downstream of science at the same time.

Statistical genetics itself is a cross-disciplinary science, where Mao can in turn feel the importance of drilling into foundational skills, including mathematics and computers. As an academic novice, Mao spent a lot of time setting up the programming language at the beginning.

When the analysis did not generate results, he checked everywhere for the cause, and eventually he reviewed the original data. As suspected, the data was initially wrong. However, he became more familiar with the process after his experience. In addition to Yang's laboratory, Mao also participated in another college student innovation competition under the guidance of Prof. Yajie Wang. They worked on a kind of digestive enzyme that can consume specific plastics.

Although he has yet to make an achievement in research, Mao is already well-trained in the sources and products of science, and computer-based and hands-on research.

Da Xu: On a Scale of Billions of Years

Da Xu summarized the difference between high school and university: A lot of knowledge is just discussed in high school, but at university, a wider world behind that knowledge is revealed.

Before the summer holiday last year, Xu first participated in scientific research training in Prof. Jia Zheng's lab, using R language to process and visualize data. When he joined the lab the second time, he chose to put on a lab coat and obtain hands-on data. He practiced the purification of nuclease and enzyme activity testing.

Zheng's lab focuses on molecular evolution and protein engineering. From the molecular point of view, protein evolution happened over a timescale of billions of years. Proteins have developed complex structures and functions under the influence of a variety of environmental factors.

In the laboratory, researchers simulate those environmental conditions and study the rules and possibilities of protein evolution in order to design, modify, and evolve enzyme proteins that are suitable for certain needs. In the lab, stories of billions of years are happening in the test tubes, which is particularly attractive to Xu.

"It’s kind of like a Creator’s act," Xu said. The test tubes and tools in the biology lab are marked with different colors, and are therefore easy to identify. For Xu, they seem to form a three-dimensional colorful book of nature.

Haoyu Chen: Connecting the Virtual and Reality

When he was in primary school, Haoyu Chen liked to fiddle with robots. In robotics competitions, he soldered circuit boards and made the robots move to a designated position. In secondary school, he participated in competitions of informatics and explored programming and microcontrollers.

When he first entered university, he joined the AI Interdisciplinary Society and met Prof. Shiyu Zhao, who specialized in intelligent unmanned systems. Later on, in Zhao's lab, he began to explore a new world.

During his first research training experience, Chen was working on developing machine control based on large language models. It involves feeding human voice commands to a large language model, such as ChatGPT, and then observing how the LLM generates control commands for the machine, for example, to drive the movement of a cart.

In other words, the LLM can receive information from our real world and send the instructions to the real-world terminals. According to Chen, such systems, known as embodied intelligence, usually have the ability to perceive, understand, make decisions and act.

Meanwhile, Chen is still as enthusiastic as ever about robots, just as he was as a child.

Jiahe Li: Nature Is a Top-Class Chemist

Prof. Haihua Lu's laboratory is a busy scene, where many chemical experiments are happening at a nonstop pace. Lu himself is also continuously working with experiments, and even cleaning test tubes with a dishwasher-like machine. People who do chemistry must keep the test tubes clean, he said.

This was where first-year student Jiahe Li began his journey into chemistry.

Today, Li was waiting for the results of his experiment. In the fume hood, he kept using petroleum ether as an eluent to extract the products of the reaction. The difficulty with organic reactions lies in the extraction of products, hidden as if tucked away in rocky crevices of a cascading mountain stream. He needs to constantly add the eluent to wash out the products and collect them in test tubes. Then he can start to test and purify the products.

The process involves waiting, accidents, and surprises. Sometimes, unexpected reaction products may be collected. Natural product synthesis is actually a direction of chemical research that is close to everyday life. For example, the brewing technology that we have mastered comes from the "manufacturing technology" of ethanol (alcohol). Also, the star anti-cancer drug paclitaxel was originally derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree.

Nature is a top-class chemist, a major reason why Li loves chemistry.

Important Labs Open to Undergraduates

Once undergraduates enter Westlake University, they receive semester-by-semester and stage-by-stage research training. Research training is generally given by an academic advisor, but students can also select a lab or research subject based on their interest. All six shared research facilities at Westlake University are also open to undergraduates, who can apply according to their research training needs.

The Biomedical Research Core Facilities consist of 10 core platforms, including microscopic imaging, cryo-electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, cell flow, high-throughput, genome, and customized technology service. There are more than 100 large-scale devices covering a full range of cutting-edge tools needed for characterization and mechanistic research that vary from atomic and molecular to cellular and organizational scales. This center provides you with the lenses to observe life activities as well as the "key" to exploring the mysteries of life sciences.

The Laboratory Animal Resources Center is a laboratory animal technology service platform integrating breeding, scientific research, development, and application. It is highly involved in research and training, and also interacts closely with the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) to maintain the highest standards for the care and use of animals in research.

The Westlake Center for Micro/Nano Fabrication consists of four core modules: patterning, etching, coating, and characterization. It currently has more than 50 large-scale micro-nano processing and characterization devices, such as the electron beam lithography system, reactive plasma etching machine, thin-film deposition system, and transmission electron microscope. The center’s best fabrication resolution reaches single-digit nanometers and its characterization capability extends to the sub-nanometer range. This platform can open the door for you to explore the microscopic world.

The Westlake University High-Performance Computing Center provides scientific computing and data analysis solutions with high quality, reliability, and customization. It connects a large number of computer servers into one unit through its ultra-high-speed network. With the computing power of tens of thousands of CPUs and thousands of GPUs, it carries out complex and complicated scientific computations and AI calculations through massive petabytes of storage. The center empowers research through the insightful interpretation of a variety of data, from the small 3D spatial structure of proteins in living organisms to the grand, inexhaustible planetary motion in the universe.

The Instrumentation and Service Center for Physical Sciences (ISCPS) is geared toward the latest cutting-edge research in physical sciences, exploring ultimate microstructures and the physical world. In this center, the latest spherical aberration electron microscopy allows the atomic microcosm to be displayed. The clusters of X-ray diffraction spots display the perfection of crystals. Its faciliities have helped reveal the peculiar physical phenomena of the quantum world. The center’s ultra-high-vacuum interconnecting pipeline has also fueled major discoveries, including the world's first coherent photocathode quantum material.

The Instrumentation and Service Center for Molecular Sciences (ISCMS) focuses on the development of high-resolution spectroscopy technologies under in-situ conditions including magnetic resonance spectroscopy, chromatography and mass spectrometry, and spectroscopy and X-ray spectroscopy. It explores various levels of molecules, electrons, and atomic nucleus, and works with light, thermal, and electromagnetic fields. The center investigates the mechanisms behind chemical changes and energy transfers, and the mysteries within the structure, interactions, and dynamics.