On December 14th, Prof. Dennis E. Discher was appointed as the Honorary Professor of HUST.

Shao Xinyu, executive Vice President of HUST, issued the Appointment Letter for Prof. Discher. On behalf of HUST, Shao extended his warm welcome to Discher and hoped that he would provide valuable guidance in promoting the scientific research and talent introduction in School of Life Science. Prof. Discher expressed his appreciation for the appointment as Honorary Professor of HUST and looked forward to more exchange and cooperation with our university in the future.

After the awarding ceremony, Discher gave a brilliant academic report titled "Scaling Concepts from Matrix to Nucleus in Heart Development and Immunotherapy" as the first special report of the Lecture of Life Science.

Based on the relationship between branches and leaves, Discher explained the role of external factors in the differentiation of different tissues. In the main body of the report, he started with the development of the heart in an embryo and described the qualitative relationship between the external pressure and the properties of tissue structure. He extended from the heart to the development of brain and bone, and then to the development of cells in immune system. Specifically, Discher mentioned the impact of external mechanical force on tumor cells. During the question-and-answer session, he gave answers to questions that students were interested in, such as the relationship between biomedical science and cancer treatment, the research application of mathematical models and learning in university.

Wang Ning, Dean of School of Life Science, introduced the major academic achievements of Discher. Discher, one of the pioneers of biomedical engineering and one of the most cited scientists in engineering, is recognized as the most influential scientist in biomedical engineering. He has published more than 250 articles, among which nine papers were published in Science, with more than 40,000 citations. One of his papers published in Cell in 2006 had been cited more than 8,000, making it the most cited article in the field of medical engineering from 2004 to 2016, the third most cited article in molecular biology and genetics and the third most cited article published by Cell since 2006. This article has revolutionized the development of biomedical engineering and mechanical biology.

Prof. Discher now is the academician of the US Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering, the Robert D. Bent Professor of the University of Pennsylvania, the director of Physics-Cancer Science Center and Biophysics-Engineering Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania.