On April 25, the Fifth Yu He Lecture was held by Shanghai Institute of Immunology in the lecture hall of Yide Building at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Dong Chen, director of the Shanghai Immune Therapy Institute and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited as the keynote speaker. Fan Xianqun, Chancellor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Lu Yong, director of the Human Resources Department of SJTUSM, and heads of some functional departments attended the Lecture, along with more than 300 students and faculty members from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Institute of Immunology, and other colleges and universities and research institutes from Shanghai and other provinces. The Lecture was hosted by Su Bing, director of Shanghai Institute of Immunology.

Academician Fan Xianqun, Chancellor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, delivered the opening remarks on behalf of SJTUSM. He first congratulated on the opening of Yu He Lecture, expressed sincere appreciation towards Academician Dong Chen and many others for their supports for the development of Shanghai Institute of Immunology over the years, and highly acclaimed the outstanding achievements made by Shanghai Institute of Immunology in recent years. Fan said that immunology is a basic frontier discipline in life sciences and also an important supporting discipline in clinical medicine. The occurrence and treatment of major chronic diseases and tumors are all closely related to immunology. The pathogenesis of many diseases cannot be fully understood unless we adopt an immunological perspective. Developments in immunology are particularly crucial for advancements in many other fields of medicine. He further pointed out that Shanghai Institute of Immunology has always been a pilot site for discipline development, talent cultivation, and mechanism innovation throughout the history of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Shanghai Institute of Immunology has cultivated numerous talents in basic immunology research. Fan emphasized the importance of Yu He Lecture in commemorating Professor Yu He, the founding director of Shanghai Institute of Immunology, who made outstanding contributions not only to the Institute, but also to immunology in China. Back in 1958, Professor Yu and his colleagues and students tried hard to save Qiu Caikang, an ordinary worker with extensive burns, at Shanghai Guangci Hospital (today’s Ruijin Hospital) and effectively controlled severe local infections using bacteriophages. Their success created favorable conditions for subsequent skin grafting and confirmed the feasibility of a novel approach to treat burns. This case represented a typical example of clinical medicine and basic medicine combined. Fan encouraged students and young researchers to follow the steps of Professor Yu, devote themselves whole-heartedly to teaching and scientific research, and make their own contributions to the development of the discipline. Finally, Fan expressed gratitude towards Academician Dong Chen, the guest of the Lecture. Dong has been committed to research in the development and differentiation mechanisms and the functions of effector T cells. Dong and his team have made several breakthroughs and surprising discoveries in many fields. Fan also said that Yu He Lecture livens up the academic atmosphere of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, giving the faculty members and students a valuable and accessible chance to “learn the wisdom of masters and fully appreciate the charms of science”. He expects that everyone present would profit from the Lecture, inherit and carry forward the spirit of scientists, and resolutely forge ahead along the path of scientific exploration.

Su Bing, director of Shanghai Institute of Immunology, then made a brief introduction to recent developments of the Institute and reflected upon the history of the Yu He Lecture and Yu He Awards. In commemoration of Professor Yu He, the founding father of the Institute who made a huge contribution to immunology in China. Shanghai Institute of Immunology launched the Yu He Lecture in 2017, intended to spread and promote the spirits of older generations of scientists: dedication, innovativeness, and pioneering. Some widely acknowledged ground-breaking achievements by Professor Yu are particularly worth commemorating, such as founding China’s first immunology institute, China's first society for immunology, Shanghai Society of Immunology, and China’s first journal of immunology,Shanghai Journal of Immunology. Every year, the Lecture invites a top expert in immunology, who enjoys international reputation and has also contributed immensely to immunology in China, especially to the development of Shanghai Institute of Immunology, as the keynote speaker. Director Su expressed his gratitude for having Academician Dong Cheng here for the 2023 Yu He Lecture. Dong has been dedicated to immunology research for many years and has made several groundbreaking achievements in T-cell differentiation and autoimmune diseases. Dong’s research has a profound impact on the treatment of immune diseases and sheds new light on tumor immunotherapy. Dong’s definitions of the roles performed by Th17 and Tfh cells have been rated among the top 20 breakthroughs in immunology in the past 20 years. Furthermore, Dong is an old friend of Shanghai Institute of Immunology. He is a long-term member of the scientific advisory board of Shanghai Institute of Immunology and gives sustained attention and supports to recent developments of the Institute.

Before the thematic report, Fan Xianquan presented Dong Chen the honor certificate for Guest Speaker of Yu He Lecture.

Later, Academician Dong Chen delivered a report titled “Molecular Control of T Cell Function in Cancer”. He first thanked the host for invitation and said that he has maintained close contacts with the predecessors and faculty members of the Institute for many years. As he returned to China to found Institute of Immunology at Tsinghua University in 2012 and established Shanghai Immune Therapy Institute in 2021, Dong was receiving unwavering supports and aids from Shanghai Institute of Immunology, led by director Su Bing, who also returned to China in the same period. Dong said that the development of modern immunology research in China was impossible without the concerted efforts of devoted scientists like Su and many others. He also shared how he formally started the research on tumor immunology back in China, reviewed the three major challenges facing cancer immunotherapy, namely, adverse reactions, low response rate, and T-cell depletion. Resolving these problems is of high importance for developing cancer immunotherapies. Next, Dong introduced in simple terms two research projects conducted by his team in the past few years concerning the regulatory mechanism of the differentiation of exhausted CD8+ T cells in the tumor microenvironment. Dong pointed out that tumor-infiltrating T cells exist in different states, including stem-like, transitory, and exhausted. These states are interconvertible, and understanding the connections between them can inform the development of new approaches to cancer immunotherapy. He presented his team’s researches on the transcription factor Bcl6 maintaining the stem-like state of CD8+T cells. That is, Bcl6 maintained the differentiation of stem-like CD8+ T cells and affected the long-term anti-tumor effect. Dong suggested that the balance between the numbers of CD8+T cells in different states in tumors may be a more important influence factor of tumor's immune response. He further introduced his team's efforts in revealing the roles of the transcription factor STAT3 in regulating the differentiation of CD8+T cells and its anti-tumor effect. All of these researches lay out a solid theoretical groundwork for developing more effective cancer immunotherapies.

The intriguing report given by Academician Dong Chen sparked heated debates among the audience. During the Q&A session, further exchanges took place between the audience and Academician Dong Chen over the sources of cytokines in the tumor microenvironment and how different states of CD8+T cells are mutually inconvertible.

The Yu He Award Ceremony was held after Dong delivered the thematic report. Academician Dong Chen and Director Su Bing presented the “2023 Yu He Post-Doctoral Award” and the “2023 Yu He Postgraduate Award” to Chen Yao and Xu Ziyang, respectively. Dr. Chen Yao, the award winner, said that she was lucky to be a member of Shanghai Institute of Immunology, which boasts of an academically strong team and provides first-class scientific research platform and a lively and relaxed atmosphere to do researches. She thanked Yu He Lecture for offering a platform for students to learn from and exchange views with masters. The award given to her would encourage her and other young scholars to keep working, draw from the invaluable heritage of older generation of scientists, such as Professor Yu He, and forge ahead relentlessly along the road of scientific exploration to achieve the ultimate goal of serving the humankind.