Scientists all agree that cancer is a genetic problem. Among the approximate 100,000 genes in each human cell, the proto-oncogene is most responsible for the illness while the recessive onco-gene can prevent it. A balance between the two genes assures health, but when carcinogenic factors cause the proto-oncogene to turn into an oncogene or when the vitality of the tumor suppressor gene is weakened or lost, cancer becomes inevitable.

Scientists say human health is further determined by the quality of bacteria and fungi genes in our bodies, which assist in the operation of the human system. "Children born via natural births have a stronger immunity than those born by caesarean sections due to sufficient healthy bacteria inoculation during the former," Yang said.

The nation's contribution

China managed to win a 1-percent research stake in the HGP thanks to Yang's efforts.

"Gene sequencing is a hard task that involves biological and information technologies," he said. "You cannot conduct large-scale sequencing using expensive machinery alone."

When the CAS established its Gene Center in 1998—currently the BGI—most of the HGP had already been distributed among the five developed countries involved. Germany, the last country to join the project, only received a 2-percent share while many famous research institutes failed to come on board.

Yang donated over 1 million yuan ($158,700) to the gene center to make up for a shortage in funds while his hometown, Leqing City in east China's Zhejiang Province, put 8 million yuan ($1.27 million) toward research. In addition, Shunyi District of Beijing offered a 3,800-square-meter house as a lab.

Alongside his colleagues, Yang made a breakthrough less than half a year later when a gene sequencing report submitted to the HGP over the Internet revealed a margin error of only 0.0006 percent, a strong indication of the team's ability.

Passing an oral defense of his research in front of the Human Genome Organization at Cambridge University, Yang won a 1-percent share in the HGP, including China in the project.

China eventually came to share an additional 10-percent stake in the International HapMap Project, which studies the difference between black and white people in efforts to prevent hereditary diseases and realize personalized medicine.

Yang and his fellow scientists recently completed gene sequencing of several livestock and plant species including rice, pandas, chickens and pigs, entering the world's top echelon of research. "Genomics has transformed people's conception of life and of themselves within the span of only a few years, making a considerable contribution to progressive research methods," he noted.

Foreign collaborations

Joining the HGP has enabled China to become one of the few countries capable of independent gene sequencing.

When an intestinal infection epidemic broke out in Germany last May, local scientists invited BGI researchers to Europe to help study possible causes. Yang headed a team that completed sequencing of the germ's genes, which in turn led to identifying the disease.

In praise of his work, Yang was elected to the German National Academy of Sciences in July and also became a bioethics consultant to U.S. President Barack Obama.

The BGI has carried out a series of international collaborations earlier this year, signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Affymetrix, Inc., an American company producing GeneChips, in January to develop and commercialize a portfolio of plant, crop and livestock micro arrays for genotyping analysis. BGI has also worked with Lal Teer, a Bangladeshi company selling seeds, to sequence the genome of water buffaloes in March. In October, the institute signed a cooperation contract with GENNET, a Czech biomedical research institute. The two institutes will jointly conduct tests on fetus genes before birth, strengthening the health of newly born babies by sequencing. In addition, the institute is currently conducting gene sequencing of 1 percent of the Danes' genome.

Yang was forced to drop out of school during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), conducting "scientific experiments" in his home village by growing mushrooms before finding work at a Leqing canning factory, where he taught fellow employees about cultivating their own fungi.

"No matter how tired I was during the day, I would read at night," Yang said. He looked for books all over the city, especially all the English ones he could find.

"We are lucky to benefit from the current age of genomics," he stressed.

1952: Born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province

1978: Received a bachelor's degree from Hangzhou University

1982: Received a master's degree in biology from the Nanjing Railroad Medical Institute

1988: Earned his Ph.D at the Institute of Medical Genetics at University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and started his post-doctoral training at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in France

1990: Continued post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School and University of California, Los Angeles

1998: Appointed chairman of the Gene Center under the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

1999: Appointed chairman of the Shenzhen branch of the BGI

2003: Appointed chairman of the Beijing Genomics Institute

2007: Elected as academician of the CAS

2012: Elected as academician of the German National Academy of Sciences