The physical and chemical properties of prestellar cores, especially massive ones, are still far from being well understood due to the lack of a large sample. The low dust temperature (< 14 K) of Planck cold clumps makes them promising candidates for prestellar objects or for sources at the very initial stages of protostellar collapse. We have been conducting a series of observations toward Planck cold clumps (PCCs) with ground-based radio telescopes. In general, when compared with other star forming samples (e.g. infrared dark clouds), PCCs are more quiescent, suggesting that most of them may be in the earliest phase of star formation. However, some PCCs are associated with protostars and molecular out ows, indicating that not all PCCs are in a prestellar phase. We have identied hundreds of starless dense clumps from a mapping survey with the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7-m telescope. Follow-up observations suggest that these dense clumps are ideal targets to search for prestellar objects.