Duke University and Rice University (RD) — Biology

Activities

• Researcher: studied the paradox of stemness in human germ cells and cancer cells from an evolutionary perspective, focusing on cancer-testis antigens.
• Hospital shadowing: at Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, shadowed oncologists and neurologists, observing drug use during chemotherapy and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) procedures.
• Researcher: used gene-editing technology to address laboratory leakage.
• Team leader and researcher: studied adolescent sleep and health, the effects of sleep deprivation, and led the building of a website of sleep-improvement advice.
• Invited speaker: presented the cancer-testis antigen project at the Science and Technology conference of the World Laureates Forum; exchanged with scientists and took part in a documentary.
• Founder and developer: built a bioinformatics-analysis chatbot website.
• Assistant editor of a science society, reviewing video scripts on public-health topics.
• Developer: wrote an image-recognition program for food allergens on campus.

Awards

• Regeneron ISEF final, Biomedical and Health Sciences, first-place grand award (1 of 2000+)
• Yau Science Award, national first prize and global honourable mention in biology (global top 10 of 2200)
• British Biology Olympiad (BBO), global gold (top 5%)
• iGEM, gold-medal team
• China Thinks Big (CTB), third place in the global final

Main essay

It opened with repairing the mouse his mother had used for twenty years and unfolded into a love of tinkering: making a candy box in primary school, building an electric skateboard at a maker garage, teaching himself to be the family technician, modifying keyboards for relatives and building computers for neighbours. Fixing his mother’s mouse, modifying his father’s keyboard, making a candy box for his grandmother and re-keying a friend’s keyboard showed the family warmth behind the skill, and conveyed an attitude of facing uncertainty head-on and actively looking for solutions.