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Shi Huang

Professor Lu Wei, a senior investigator at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the latest Chinese academic to return home amid drastic funding cuts to university research grants by the White House.
He has taken up a full-time role with the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART), as announced on the organisation’s official social media account on June 3.
SMART president Yan Ning reposted the announcement, saying: “[Lu] officially agreed to come to Shenzhen long before President Donald Trump’s second term. His research field is fascinating.”
Lu has long focused on the neurobiological mechanisms of synaptic development and functional regulation, as well as the effects of anxiety, depression, anaesthesia and alcohol.
Lu’s relocation significantly bolsters the ambitions of Shenzhen, an open economic special zone, to become a national centre for biomedical research.
Lu graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from China’s Sichuan University in 1997 and obtained a master’s degree from Zhejiang University three years later.

He later carried out biochemical research on synaptic proteins at New York University, where he received a doctorate in neuroscience and physiology in 2005.
Towards the end of that year, Lu joined the University of California, San Francisco, to conduct postdoctoral research in synaptic electrophysiology.
In 2011, he joined the NIH and established the Synapse and Neural Circuit Laboratory at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
The same year, he received the independent researcher development award from NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health.
In 2019, Lu received the director’s award from NIH/NINDS and was promoted to a tenured senior investigator the following year.
Lu has published over 50 academic papers as either the first or corresponding author in leading academic journals, including Science, Cell, Neuron, PNAS, Nature Communications, Molecular Psychiatry and Cell Reports.


At SMART, Lu will focus on developing a new generation of drugs for treating brain diseases.
Lu is the third full-time senior principal investigator from top US institutions to join SMART in just the past month.
On May 26, SMART announced that its sleep and consciousness research group was to be led by Dan Yang, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dan previously also worked at the University of California, Berkeley.
In early May, Charles Lieber, a renowned scholar in the fields of nanoscience and chemistry, officially joined the Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School as a full-time professor.
He was also appointed a chair professor at Tsinghua University and serves as a senior researcher in the SMART programme at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology.
Before this, he was the chair of the chemistry department at Harvard University.
More full-time senior principal investigators may be on the way to China.
“Summer vacation, summer vacation, come quickly! Every month, I will announce a new full-time senior principal investigator has joined SMART,” Yan announced on social media.


Since returning to the White House, Trump has reduced research funding and terminated numerous federally funded research projects, particularly those supported by the NIH.
According to a survey by the leading international academic journal Nature, as many as 75 per cent of American scientists were considering leaving the US, with many indicating that they were seeking job opportunities abroad.
Yan also manages the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, which currently has more than 100 research teams, nearly 200 senior researchers and more than 600 students.
Over 90 per cent of the principal investigators employed by the lab are from world-renowned universities, includin Princeton University and Stanford Universities from the US, as well as Tsinghua, Peking University and the University of Hong Kong.
In Shenzhen’s Guangming district, where SMART and the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory are located, the city is promoting scientific development in three key disciplines: information science, life science and new materials science.
The webpage of Lu’s lab at the NIH states, “Our goal is to understand how molecules and behaviours interact with each other in the brain.”


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Science

From NIH to SMART: senior biologist Lu Wei leaves US government post for China

Lu Wei is the third full-time senior principal investigator from top US institutions to join SMART in the past month. Photo: Handout

Interior view of the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART). Photo: Handout

Top neuroscientist Dan Yang leaves US for China, reunites with mentor-husband Mu-ming Poo

The return of Dan Yang, along with her husband Mu-ming Poo, to China signals a growing trend of top-tier scientists being drawn to the nation’s ambitious research ecosystem. Photo: Handout

Next-generation battery expert Zhou Jianbin leaves US for China as nations seek tech edge

Solid-state batteries are seen as a key technological battleground. Photo: Xinhua

Next-generation battery expert Zhou Jianbin. Photo: Handout

Mathematician Zhong Xiao leaves Finland for China with award-winning work critical for AI

Award-winning mathematician Professor Zhong Xiao has returned to China after nearly three decades in Finland. Photo: The Paper

News

China

Top Chinese researcher is the latest academic to leave after US President Donald Trump’s university funding cuts


Top Chinese researcher is the latest academic to leave after US President Donald Trump’s university funding cuts.


United States

Shenzhen