Recently, China National Natural Science Foundation website reported that the team led by Associate Professor Wang Lihong and Professor Zhou Qing from School of Environment and Civil Engineering in JU, in cooperation with the team headed by Huang Xiaohua, Professor of Nanjing Normal University and Deng Xingwang, Professor of Yale University and Peking-Yale Joint Center, had made significant progress in the microcosmic ecological mechanism of rare earth, publishing a research paper-- “Rare earth elements activate endocytosis in plant cells” onPNAS.

Compared to the known macroelements and microelements, little attention has been paid to rare earth elements. Nowadays with large-scale mining, production and application, rare earth has been spread and is accumulating in the natural environment, becoming a major threat to the ecosystem and even human health and safety. With regards to the hidden peril, both Chinese and foreign experts and governments have been focusing on “ecological security of rare earth research” and calling for “the establishment of scientific standards”. However, no relevant international standards have been set up. The insufficiency of basic research, especially on the cellular mechanism of rare earth which has confused human beings for nearly 100 years, has limited scientists’ horizon of its microcosmic mechanism, leading to unreliable objective assessment on ecological safety of rare earth from professional organizations and governments.

In this paper, through a research method with optimized combination of rare earth radioautography, cell biology, biophysics and cellular inorganic chemistry, the researchers became the first in the world to reveal the behaviors and life cycle of rare earth elements in plant cells and proposed that concerning plant cells’ role on rare earth, endocytosis was the first response, which could be seen as the behavior basis of this effect. The finding solved the problem of rare earth microcosmic ecological mechanism which had puzzled people for many years and provided theoretical and technical guidance for the establishment of international standards on limiting rare earth elements in food.