Prof. Leland H. Hartwell, the Nobel Prize Winner of 2001 in Physiology or Medicine and President and Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, was invited to be honorary professor in Tsinghua on August 30.Tsinghua President Gu Binglin and Vice President Cen Zhangzhi met and had a friendly talk with Prof. Hartwell.

President Gu introduced Tsinghua University and said that more attention would be paid to life science in the future. They talked about fund raising, students, and so on. After the meeting, President Gu awarded the letter of appointment to Prof. Hartwell.

Before the meeting, Prof. Hartwell gave a lecture titled “What We Can Do for the Early Detection of Cancer?” in the Lecture Hall of School of Sciences Building. In his lecture, Prof. Hartwell emphasized the importance of early detection of cancer. After the speech, Prof. Hartwell answered the questions raised by the seated students.

Prof. Hartwell was born in 1939. He got B.S. at California Institute of Technology in 1961 and ph. D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. In 1997, he became the President and Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Prof. Hartwell received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for his pioneering discoveries of the mechanisms of cell division.

Reported by Li Han

Photoed by Guo Haijun