Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover tells students to ask more questions

Students at East China Normal University at a lecture by Ciechanover with their Haifa University peers. Provided To China Daily

Israeli Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover has called on young Chinese students to develop the culture of asking questions and to challenge their professors.

He added that as Chinese culture emphasizes respect, students are not usually encouraged to challenge their teachers, but this had to change.

He said this as he gave an online lecture to the students of the East China Normal University and Israel's Haifa University on May 23.

During his lecture he also said that while China has made much progress, Chinese scientists sometimes needed to do more to achieve innovation.

The event was jointly hosted by the two universities and the Israeli consulate in Shanghai as part of events to mark 25 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries this year.

Ciechanover, 69, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2004.

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has produced 10 Nobel winners, says Amikam Levy, consul general of Israel in Shanghai.

Haifa alone has produced three Nobel laureates, according to Ciechanover, who shared his experience growing up in the Israeli city and studying medicine there before going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

The most important lesson he learned, he said, was to have "passion about what you are doing".

He encouraged students to pursue their dreams. "If it is not something in your DNA, then change, because life is short."

He spoke about the revolution in medical science and how it has enabled longer human life expectancy.

With the development of genetics, humans are entering an era of precision medicine, he said citing Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie's surgery on discovering that she carried genes with high risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Ciechanover said one day science may help people to "discard the sick gene and replace it with healthy genes".

Ma Yaolu, a student majoring in chemistry at the ECNU, said that Ciechanover's lecture has helped her to decide that she will do her post-graduate studies. "I am a junior-year student, and am faced with the choice of either furthering my studies or taking a job after graduation. I found the lecture very inspiring."

According to Levy, Sino-Israeli relations celebrate "a mutual future" as well.

Shanghai and Haifa have done joint scientific research for years.