2013 Awardees at Ceremony

Ying Li

Background: Ms. Li entered the Ph.D. program in Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Science, Chinese Academy of Science in 2009. Her advisor is Dr.杜久林. She focuses on understanding the role of microglia and its interplay with neuronal activity in the zebra fish nervous system. She found that the resting microglia-neuron contact in turn reduces both the spontaneous and visually evoked activities of contacted neurons at single and populational neuron levels.

Citation: Ms. Li clearly shows in-depth understanding of her research. She is a strong student with the ability to think and work independently, including solving many challenges during her doctoral research. She is passionate about her work, and aims at high goals. She has good understanding of neuroscience field and direction. She describes the experiment lively and fluently. She answers the questions precisely and responses quickly. She is very ambitious, and has a sense of purpose. Overall, the committee thinks that Ms. Li is clearly an outstanding graduate student.

This prize is sponsored by Chinese Biological Investigators Society.

Shan Li

Background: Ms. Li received her bachelor degree from China Agricultural University in 2007, and is conducting her Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Dr. Shao, Feng at the National Institute of Biological Science (NIBS)/China Agricultural University. Her research focuses on the function of a virulence factor called NleB from diarrhea-causing Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC). The mechanism of action of NleB identified from her work represents not only a new paradigm in bacterial counteracting host defenses but also a previously unappreciated posttranslational modification in eukaryotic signaling regulation.

Citation: Ms. Li has in-depth knowledge and understanding of her project. Her presentation was very good. She has the passion to pursue science as a woman scientist. Overall, all the judges were impressed and considered her as a smart, self-motivated and thoughtful individual.

This prize is sponsored by the Yu and Wei Foundation.

Jiaxuan Feng

Background: Mr. Feng received his bachelor of medicine degree from Second Military Medical University in 2008, and is conducting his Ph.D. study under the direction of Dr. 李景平. He engaged in biomechanical study of aortic dissection.

Citation: Mr. Feng is a graduate student pursuing clinical and translational research. He has high expertise in the vascular surgery field working in one of the leading groups in China. Using analytical and modeling tools, he helped to develop critical procedures with increased success rates. He has broad knowledge in field related to cardiovascular diseases. He knows relevant stem cell repair work. He offered a very clear presentation. He speaks clearly and logically. He has strong desire to combine clinical work with basic and translational research, and he wants to become a new type of physician scientist in China. All the interviewers were impressed by his knowledge and temperament.

This prize is sponsored by Drs. Jianmin Chen and Xiaoqiao Jiang.

Lan Jiang

Background: Mr. Jiang received his bachelor degree from Wuhan University in 2005, and is conducting his Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Dr. 吴仲义 at Beijng Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Science. His has always been interested in the epigenetic reprogramming in several biological processes. Using zebra fish as a model system, Lan and co-worker took a joint effort in decoding the landscape of epigenetic reprogramming during the early development of zebra fish. With the large scale sequencing approach, they found that epigenetic information is used differently across zebra fish life history. While the maternal information is heavily used in early development, starting from midblastula (MBT) stage, the paternal epigenome begins to play the major role.

Citation: Mr. Jiang is very independent. He understands the field well, and made a major contribution to his ourstanding publication. His thinking is logical and innovative, and he has long term goals. He knows biology as well as bioinformatics. His presentation is clear.

This prize is sponsored by Olympus (China) CO., Ltd.

Huan Yan

Background: Mr. Yan received his BS degree from Wuhan University in 2008, and entered the Ph.D. program in National Institute of Biological Science (NIBS) / Peking University in 2010. Under the direction of Dr. Wenhui Li, he led his team to identify NTCP as a functional receptor for HBV and hepatitis delta virus (HDV), its satellite virus.

Citation: Mr. Yan is smart and hardworking. He has made a major breakthrough by identifying HBV receptor. He has in-depth understanding of the project. He will stay in the same lab for a few years to finish the project. He has a broad knowledge base, and interested in drug development and gene therapy. He gave a great presentation on his own work.

This prize is sponsored by Olympus (China) CO., Ltd.

Xiaoshan Shi

Background: Mr. Shi entered the PhD program in Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (IBCB), Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he studies under Dr.许琛琦 in 2011. The project he has been studying is the molecular mechanism of T-cell antigen receptor (TCR) triggering. 1) His work shows a new function of Ca2+ on the manipulation of membrane environment, which might has a general application to other signaling pathways. 2) He and his co-worker find the structural basis for Lck-CD3 interaction and demonstrate the functional importance of this interaction on T cell activation.

Citation: Mr. Shi shows in-depth understanding of T cell immunology. He can focus on the most important questions. He can describe details of different structure methods in order to monitor conformational changes upon ligand-TCR interacting. He is knowledgeable about the entire process of T cell activation as well as biology of lipid and Ca2+. He answers all questions with accuracy and depth. He has a clear goal in further studying membrane receptor biology.

This prize is sponsored by Novartis.

Jun Lv

Background: Mr. Lv received his Bachelor of Science degree from Beijing Normal University in 2009 and entered the Ph.D. program in Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Science in 2011. His advisor is Dr. Wen Wang. For the past three years, he has been working on rice domestication and improvements using a genomic approach combining next generation sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatic analysis. He comes up with a novel idea of allele mining, which termed as ETAS (elite variety tag SNPs) strategy.

Citation: Mr. Lv is a mature student with good analytical skills and in-depth knowledge in his field. He was able to independently design computational methods to identify elite variety tag SNPs. His work contributed to significant progress in the field. He knows well in related plant fields. Interviewers think that he has good general knowledge about Dr. Ray Wu’s contributions. He offered a good presentation, and appears to have ambition to become an academic leader.

This prize is sponsored by Crown Bioscience Inc.

Xinyang Song

Background: Mr. Song received his BS from China Pharmaceutical University in 2007, and is conducting his Ph.D. study under the direction of Dr. Youcun Qian at Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science. His Ph.D. thesis is to investigate the mechanisms by which interleukin-17 (IL-17) cytokine family functions in host defense system and autoimmunity. His work for the first time proves that IL-17RE is a receptor specific to IL-17C and has an essential role in host mucosal defense against infection.

Citation: Mr. Song has identified the IL-17C receptor, and his achievements are obvious. He knows about this signal pathway clearly. In discussion, he was able to address the relationship to other signal transduction pathways. He is aware of other lab’s work, even those just remotely related to his studies. His responses are accurate and clear. He appears to be ambitious. He likes to contribute to a major breakthrough.

This prize is sponsored by the Xu-Chen Family Foundation.

Xiong Ji

Background: Mr. Ji received his bachelor degree from Wuhan University in 2008, and entered the Ph.D. program in the laboratory of Dr. 付向东 at Wuhan University in 2010. His work has been focused on a novel function of a typical splicing factor called SC35 in transcriptional activation. He discovered that the RNA binding protein also binds to gene promoters as part of the 7SK complex and that knockdown of the factor causes Pol II to become further paused near the transcription state site. This suggests that SC35 plays a critical role in transcription pause release.

Citation: Mr. Ji showed ability to carry out a complex project and has in-depth knowledge of the field. His project is innovative. He has a clear vision of mRNA transcription. He is confident, sharp and solid. His presentation was clear.

This prize is sponsored by the Xu-Chen Family Foundation.

Kol Jia Yong

Background: Ms. Yong has done her Ph. D. with Professor Dan Tenen in Cancer Science Institute (CSI) of Singapore. She graduated from National University of Singapore with biomedical major. She is among the first group of graduate students enrolled and trained in CSI. Her Ph. D work is a challenging and highly risky project that is beyond Tenen’s lab’s previous expertise and leading to a new direction on a stem cell factor, Sall4, in liver cancer development. In many ways, she drives this project independently and overcomes technical hurdles and finally makes some striking findings on Sall4, as an key factor involving liver cancer. Most interestingly her work showed an interesting epigenetic connection and revealed a possible therapeutic target for liver cancer.

Citation: The most striking feature of Kol Jia is her dedication to science. She has be one of hardest workers in the CSI and is fully committed for a scientific career as a cancer researcher. As from letters from Dr Tenen and others, she has been ranked highly over her peers and she is probably one of most achieved Ph. D students in Singapore. She is also open minded and an excellent communicator with charming personality. Her presentation is outstanding and convincing. It is very likely that Ms Yong will eventually grow up as an independent research scientist in the future.

This prize is sponsored by the Xu-Chen Family Foundation.

RWMF members at the award ceremony for the 2013 Ray Wu Prize