George K Lee Foundation Scholarships 2018/19 winners announced
LIFS is pleased to announce that the following candidates have been selected for the George K Lee Foundation Scholarships 2018/19:
Name
PhD Program / Year
Supervisor
CHEN Xudong
Life Science
Prof. Mingjie ZHANG
CHEN Yiyun
Life Science
Prof. Jiguang WANG
The selected two winners will receive an amount of USD $5,000 (approx. HKD $39,075).
CHEN Xudong
CHEN Xudong received his Bachelor of Science degree in Life Science at Sichuan University in China and is now a PhD student in Prof. Mingjie Zhang‘s lab.
He has received the “Best Oral Presentation” in the Hong Kong Inter-University Postgraduate Symposium in Biochemical Sciences in 2018 and “Best Teaching Assistant Award” in LIFS at HKUST in 2016.
The major focus of his research is to understand how excitatory synapses in the central nervous system operates. He has demonstrated that mixing purified postsynaptic scaffold proteins at physiological concentrations can form highly condensed, self-organized postsynaptic density (PSD)-like assemblies. Such reconstituted PSD assemblies may function as molecular platforms for understanding mechanisms governing the synaptic formation and activity-dependent modulations.
During his time here at LIFS, Chen’s research has contributed to several publications in high profile journals such as Cell, Biochemistry and Molecular Cell.
CHEN Yijun
CHEN Yijunreceived her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry at HKUST and her MPhil in Life Science under the supervision of Prof. Mingjie Zhang also at HKUST. She is now a PhD student inProf. Jiguang Wang‘s lab.
She has received an Overseas Research Award and presented her research entitled “Elucidation of the dysregulated noncoding genomic landscape in cancer by fast long-noncoding RNA assembly workflow” in EpiHK Symposium 2019.
Her research has been focused on analyzing genomic and transcriptomic sequencing data to discover disease-related molecular alterations and mechanisms. During her time as a PhD student, she has been involved in several projects including the mutational landscape of secondary glioblastoma (sGBM), chromatin interactions in regulating B cell development and single-cell sequencing in resolving brain complexity.
Her work on sGBM published inCellhas demonstrated the power of big data in providing new insights into the mechanisms of complex diseases and providing new therapeutic options for patients with aggressive brain tumor.
To be eligible for the George K Lee Foundation Scholarships, the applicant must be a full-time research postgraduate student in the School of Science and demonstrate a high standard of academic excellence in the area of science and intellectual qualities. (According to the scholarship administration guidelines, students need to obtain CGA of 3.15 and a rating of 1 or 2 in the Annual Progress Report for being considered for the scholarships.)
The selection criteria are based on the number of publications; sequence of the candidate’s authorship (1st author or 2nd author or …) for each publication; and the impact factor and ranking in the field of the published journal (by Web of Science).
Click here for more information on the George K Lee Foundation Scholarships.
