Today the 3rd MIT Technology Review of 35 innovators under the age of 35 was announced at the EMTECH China global emerging technology conference.

Westlake University was represented among the 35 innovators selected for the review with Peilong LU and Nanjia ZHOU.

Peilong LU

Age: 31

Post: PI, School of Life Science, Westlake University

Awarded for: Accurate computational design of multi-pass transmembrane proteins

Protein design is an emerging filed and an important branch of structural biology, which needs the seamless integration of biophysics, biochemistry, synthetic biology, and computational biology.

By using computational biology tools, Peilong LU simulated the interaction of polar residues in the membrane environment and designed a variety of transmembrane proteins which turned out to be super stable in lipid bilayer.

These designed proteins can spontaneously fold into structures consistent with the design models, validated by biochemical and biophysical characterizations.

For the first time, people can accurately design three-dimensional structures of multi-pass transmembrane proteins, paving the way for the design of functional transmembrane nanopores, ion channels, and cell surface receptors. This work may have a huge impact on vaccine development, DNA nanopore sequencing, and cell therapy.

Nanjia ZHOU

Age: 33

Post: PI, School of Engineering, Westlake University

Awarded for: achieving the highest precision electronic 3D printing

The resolutions of most 3D printing technologies on the market today can only reach tens to hundreds of micrometers, which is far from typical resolutions required by modern electronic device fabrication. Nanjia ZHOU’s research focuses on the development of new functional materials to break the limit of printing resolution and expand the application space of additive manufacturing. His team invented the highest resolution electronic 3D printing technologies available today.

Combining new electronic materials and the high resolution manufacturing, Nanjia ZHOU introduces 3D multi-material printing technologies to the chip manufacturing field and his team has demonstrated GHz frequency radiofrequency electronics manufacturing, packaging and integration; passive devices printing and integration on-chip; 3D-printed antenna with a small footprint of only tens to hundreds of micrometers, so that 3D printing technology can be applied to 5G radio frequency technology and other fields, providing new opportunities for future manufacturing schemes of miniaturized, heterogeneously integrated, and personalized electronic devices.

Starting in 1999, the annual MIT Technology Review selects a group of the most innovative and influential scientists, researchers, and technology entrepreneurs under the age of 35, many of whom are architects of the modern world.

For example, in 1999, Zhiyuan YANG was selected by the MIT Technology Review, and his company, Yahoo, became the largest Internet company in the world; in 2002, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two young entrepreneurs with ideas only two or three years advanced at that time, established Google; and in 2013, a genetics researcher and professor at MIT, Feng ZHANG, is now considered to be the top researcher of CRISPR in the world and one of the leading figures in the accelerating development of global gene editing research after the launch of CRISPR.

The innovation, curiosity, persistence, inspiration, and courage of young people tell us what the future world will look like, because behind every young person, there is the possibility of a new era.