On October 30, the New Cornerstone Investigator Program announced the second batch of investigators to receive its grant support. Prof. Zhang Yan, from the School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Tianjin University is among the 46 outstanding scientists selected out of 583 applicants. He was also the first person in Tianjin to gain this honor.

Dr. Zhang Yan, Chair Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of Tianjin University, recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars has long been committed to research related to enzymology, biochemistry and synthetic biology. In 2006, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a doctoral degree in genetics, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and MIT successively from 2006 to 2012. He joined Tianjin University in 2014, and since then has presided over and participated in 2 key R&D projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology and 2 general programs of the National Natural Science Fundation. Prof. Zhang has 7 authorized patents and 3 of them have been commercialized.

Professor Zhang focuses his research interests on the diversity of microorganisms in the basic substances (nucleic acids, amino acids and sugar) and energy metabolism, and tries to explore the use of newly found enzymes and new genes as synthetic biological elements in fields like medicine, chemical industry, materials and computer science.

The New Cornerstone Investigator Program is a nonprofit and independent funding initiative that takes a forward-thinking approach to encouraging basic research spearheaded by leading scientists. Tencent has pledged to provide 10 billion RMB in 10 years while exploring the feasibility of a long-term sustainable fund for The Program.

By Yuan Bo

Editor: Eva Yin