Biography

Growing up in a developing country, I was deeply impressed by how science and technology have improved the quality of people’s life. On the other hand, as I was volunteering in science education in remote villages, I also realized education and medical care are distributed unequally in some undeveloped regions. With my ultimate goal of making everyone around the world have equal right to basic medical care, I was determined to become a medical scientist and to develop useful and affordable therapies to improve people’s lives. I am excited and honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge community for my PhD after my undergraduate study in Xiamen University, China. During my PhD in Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan’s lab, I will work on improving and possibly discovering new therapies for tuberculosis infection. As one of the oldest known human infectious diseases, tuberculosis continues being a leading cause of death from infectious diseases. It caused about 1.3 million deaths and 10.4 million infection cases in 2016 (WHO 2017). Nowadays, the rapid increase of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis strains is the main challenge in the battle against this disease. I will mainly focus on host innate immune reactions against bacterial infection. By targeting on the key molecules and pathways in host immune system, I hope to provide new ideas in the treatment of tuberculosis, including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

Previous Education

Xiamen University