(Yicai Global) Nov. 2 -- World-renowned biologist Yan Ning announced she would return to China and assist in establishing the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation.

Yan will step down as a professor at Princeton University in the US and work at the new institution, which will serve for scientific research, transformation, and talent development, she said yesterday at the 2022 Shenzhen Global Innovation Talent Forum.

Yan graduated from the Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology of Tsinghua University in 2000 and earned a doctorate degree at Princeton in 2004. She worked as a teacher at Tsinghua between 2007 and 2017, when she left China to become the first Shirley M. Tilghman Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton.

Forty-five-year-old Yan was named a member of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign Associate in 2019 and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences last year.

Yan’s decision to come back to China for a full-time job shows the attractiveness of Shenzhen to top international talents, Liu Muyun, director of the National Engineering Research Center for Key Generic Technology of Cell Industry, told Yicai Global.

Over 75 full-time academicians work in Shenzhen, with the city being home to more than 22,000 high-level talents and 190,000 overseas returnees, latest official data showed.

Shenzhen’s efforts to build an academy of medical science with fewer bureaucratic restrictions reflect the city’s advancements in the world’s frontier medical research and its commitment to promoting the application of medical science research discoveries and creating a series of innovative drugs and treatment methods, Liu added.

Editor: Martin Kadiev