Top Scientists from the US Turn to China, Penn State Can't Hide Its Sadness, Once Contributed 20 Years for the US!
Recently, a top global brain scientist moved from the University of Pennsylvania to Shenzhen Institute of Technology. The scientist, named Gao Zhonghua, is a Chinese-American who has been deeply involved in the U.S. biomedical field for over 20 years. He long served as a tenured associate professor at the Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University, an extremely stable and respected position within the U.S. university system.
More importantly, his research is not a niche area but focuses on how cells determine their identity and maintain functional stability — which directly relates to brain development, autism, and even cancer mechanisms. Such fundamental research is the source of innovation in biomedicine.
His most representative achievement is a paper published in the top journal "Cell" in 2012, revealing how gene silencing proteins assemble and function. This paper has been cited over a thousand times, indicating that it has become an important reference point in the field. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the core institution supporting biomedical research in the U.S. federal government, with an annual budget exceeding $4 billion. The fact that he received long-term, multi-million-dollar project support from NIH itself proves his high recognition within the U.S. research system.
However, just last month, Gao Zhonghua officially joined Shenzhen Institute of Technology as a full-time professor. This is not a part-time appointment, but a real "move": he is currently building a complete team in Shenzhen, recruiting from teachers, postdoctoral fellows to lab technicians. This means his entire research focus has shifted to China. There is a noticeable sense of sadness in the forums of the University of Pennsylvania.
For the Pennsylvania State University, losing a key researcher leading an NIH project and a highly cited scholar is no small matter. This not only means the departure of a mature laboratory but may also affect the university's international competitiveness in the fields of neurodevelopment and epigenetics. Although the university has not publicly commented, according to academic conventions, the loss of such core talent often leads to the breakdown of collaboration networks, gaps in graduate training, and even chain reactions in subsequent project applications.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1856093548773644/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.