On March 10, 2017, the article Bug mapping and fitness testing of chemically synthesized chromosomeX, with Wu Yi as the first author, was published on Science (Science 355, eaaf4706 (2017)). He was also the co-author of three of the other papers. Wu Yi was a doctoral student at the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology at Tianjin University and joined the synthetic biology team led by Yuan Yingjin, a professor and Vice President of Tianjin University. Sponsored by government scholarship, he went to the United States and studied at New York University with Jef Boeke’s team in his first and second year of the doctoral study. He has delivered numerous academic reports at international academic conferences.

Scientific Research is Not Stereotyped Writing

During the last university summer vacation, Wu Yi attended the "Build-A-Genome (BAG) China" course in Tianjin University and it was the first time he had set foot in synthetic biology. After he was admitted to Tianjin University as a postgraduate, he joined in the Sc2.0 project and realized that there are no fixed patterns in scientific research. At the same time, he learned that synthetic biology is experiencing rapid development.

Perseverance and Innovation

The saying goes that one minute on stage takes ten years of practice. In the first year as a postgraduate, Wu Yi did the experiment of synthesis - replacement - verification repeatedly every week and replaced the complete yeast chromosomes in the process. Whenever he faced difficulties, he would tell himself to be open-minded and not to give up. Wu Yi thinks that there are some essential factors to being innovative. Firstly, the operation of experiments should be serious so as to get reliable experimental data. Secondly, don’t abandon experimental results easily and don’t be afraid of difficulties and bottlenecks. And lastly, you should be open-minded. Scientific research seems to be tough and boring, but as long as we can tackle these issues, we may obtain unprecedented achievements and happiness.

Story behind the PoPM Method

The main highlight of his paper is PoPM (pooled PCRTag Mapping). This method had been widely adopted by the members of the Sc2.0 project before the publication of the paper. Wu Yi likes to tell the story behind the PoPM method. “The biggest challenge for us is not the complexity of the operation, but the cell growth bugs raised by synthetic genome due to the complexity of the organism and the limitations of our understanding of the genome. It’s troublesome and time-consuming work to position targets of growth bugs because of the large scale of the synthetic genome and numerous genetic alteration sites. However, we have no fear of these difficulties. Through studying the characteristics of a large number of candidate strain genotypes, we have found some targets and we are also aware we need to develop a highly efficient method of positioning target bugs.” From previous experimental operations, Wu Yi wondered whether the single validation experiment of a number of strains with growth bugs could be combined into one experiment. “Thanks to a flash of ideas and immediate attempts, we developed a method of using the colonies strategy and PCR tags to efficiently position growth bugs' targets, named as pooled PCRTag mapping. The ‘PoPM’ in English is the abbreviation of ‘the maximum power output’ and it perfectly highlights the advantages of this method.”

International Vision

The success of the Sc2.0 project is the result of the win-win cooperation among scientific and technological members with an international vision. While exchanging ideas with other international teams, Wu Yi also gained a lot of valuable experience. Wu Yi got the opportunity to visit the New York University and joined in the Jef Boeke team where he participated in many international conferences and gave many speeches.

In June 2015, as one of the two speakers at the conference, Wu Yi, on behalf of Tianjin University, spoke at the 4th Annual Sc2.0 and Synthetic Genomes Conference. In May 2016, he was invited to the seminar of HGP-write: Testing Large Genomes in Cells hosted by the School of Medicine at Harvard University. In June 2016, he participated in the SynBioBeta China 2016 at Tsinghua University as the youngest speaker at the meeting and in July 2016, he participated in the 5th Annual Sc2.0 and Synthetic Genomes Conference at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom as a speaker. In March 2016, he went to Hopkins University in the United States, lecturing the course “Build a Genome” for undergraduates.

Other Aspects of Wu Yi

Wu Yi said his family played an important role in building his character, especially the strict education of his mother. His attitude towards learning and scientific research can be described as “serious but lively”. He learned to fully prepare for an important experiment or an international conference. At the same time, he is fond of fitness and basketball. He is also a humorous person. In one of the international conferences in New York in 2015, he showed a picture of New York’s subway to imply the difficulties in his subject: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us. We apologize for any inconvenience.” This conference left a deep impression on his American supervisor.

Wu Yi said synthetic biology provided a new opportunity to get more knowledge about complex biological systems and opened up new application areas. He intends to continue his engagement in this scientific research and will dedicate himself to scientific research.

A New Starting Point Instead of the End

Wu Yi told everyone that he was not sure whether his research results would ever be published in such a high level journal. However, he further explained that he focused on growth of knowledge rather than the results, and perhaps this is why he succeeded. The scientific world requires constant exploration and achieving one result is not the end, but the starting point to accomplish more achievements. Following the successful publication of the papers, Wu Yi has begun a new research project. In the meantime, he keeps in touch with friends engaging in international scientific research and helps fifteen graduates carry out follow-up research.