By Xinming Li, bostonese.com
Boston, May 20, 2015, — Dr. Feng Zhang of MIT and the Broad Institute, one of the pioneers in CRISPR/cas system for bio-medical research, delivered the evening keynote speech at Boston BioForum, hosted by Chinese American Bio-Medical Association(CABA). About 200 researchers, professionals and students attended this year’s Boston BioForum and CABA Annual Meeting at Double Tree Hotel along the Charles River on May 9.
Shiwen Lin(right), president of the board of CABA gives Excellence in Innovation Award to Dr. Feng Zhang(photo by Xinming Li).
In his speech, Mr. Zhang recalled his experience of studying science growing up in China, and his journey from a middle school student needing help on English in Iowa to running his own lab at leading medical research institute in the world after his family immigrated to the US when he was 12.
In July 2014, Mr. Zhang, Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Emmanuelle Charpentier of Umeå University were awarded Brandeis University’s 17th Annual Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine.They were honored for their work on the CRISPR/cas system, a genome editing technology that allows scientists to make precise changes to a DNA sequence — an advance that is expected to transform many areas of biomedical research and may ultimately form the basis of new treatments for human genetic disease.
(L to R)Dr. Susan Qu, Dr. Zhiyong Yang and Dr. Shiwen Lin pose for a picture(photo by Xinming Li).
A number of CABA members also received awards at the evening session. Leadership award went to Zhiyong Yang and Susan Qu. Ying Chen, Liping Zhou, Zhengdong Zhu, Jianfeng Hang, Qingqing Cao, Ellen Fan received Community Service Award for their dedication to CABA and service to the community over the past year.
New CABA president Susan Qu and outgoing president Zhiyong Yang congratulated Dr. Zhang for receiving the prestigious Excellence in Innovation Award at Boston BioForum. Dr. Zhang joked that he recently received another award at MIT faculty meeting: Mostly Likely to Be Mistaken as Undergraduate Student.