Youngest Chinese-American tenured at MIT
Take me away, mom Animals on the Road	“Water Margin” on eggs Cat the occupier Adorable animals pose like stars Cuddle up together, battling against blizzard Sunshine in the life

 

Zhang Feng [File photo: baidu.com]

34-year-old scientist Zhang Feng has become a tenured professor at the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. This breaks the record for the youngest person of Chinese heritage to earn tenure at the school. Late Chinese rocket scientist Qian Xuesen earned tenure at MIT at the age of 35.

Born in Hebei province in 1982, Zhang moved to the US in 1994. He became interested in bioscience during high school and obtained his bachelor's degree in chemistry and physics from Harvard College and a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University.

He joined MIT in 2011 as an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and an assistant professor in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering. In 2013, Zhang and his team were the first to report CRISPR-based gene editing in mammalian cells.

Zhang and his team have continued to make new and better gene-editing tools, as well as use them to improve human understanding of the nervous system and develop new approaches to the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases.

Zhang Feng was named a runner-up for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year for his role in the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system.

Author： 　　　Source：CRI　　　 Editor：Yang Fan