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Home > Prizes > Prize Recipients > Feng Zhang

Feng Zhang

2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Location

Cambridge, MA

Title

Professor of neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Area(s) of Research

Molecular biology; neuroscience; genome editing

Education

Stanford University (PhD);
Harvard College (AB)

Country of Birth

China

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biochemistry biomedical science Cas13 Cas9 china CRISPR genetics genome genome-editing MIT molecular biology
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Born in China’s Hebei province, Feng Zhang immigrated with his parents at age 11 to Des Moines, where his interest in biology was piqued during a screening of Jurassic Park in middle school. The film’s premise — that dinosaurs are resurrected from DNA fragments — gained hold over his imagination. He volunteered at a gene therapy lab through an after-school program, where he picked up molecular biology skills quickly.

Feng Zhang with a student in his lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

He majored in chemistry and physics at Harvard; inspired by a classmate’s depression-induced dropout, he resolved to study neuroscience, and enrolled in graduate school at Stanford. There, he worked in “optogenetics,” which uses light to control the activities of brain cells in living animals. Zhang engineered light-sensitive proteins into the neurons of freely moving mice — allowing neuroscientists to map circuits underlying normal brain functions and study dysfunctions in animals.

Zhang then returned to the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he attempted to edit the genomes of mammalian cells with the aim of engineering them. e succeeded, but realized the proteins he used were too cumbersome for widespread application. So Zhang began working with CRISPR-Cas9 — a natural genetic toolkit that some bacteria use to fend off invading viruses — eventually using it to successfully edit the genomes of living mouse and human cells.

Feng Zhang at a bench in his lab

It was a landmark in molecular biology. Today, thousands of researchers use this molecular scalpel to edit DNA; the method can be used to treat muscular dystrophy and glaucoma in mice, render human cells grown in lab dishes resistant to HIV, and help create food crops and livestock with desirable traits.

Zhang and his team continue to improve and expand CRISPR-mediated genome editing, and Zhang continues to apply his gift for molecular biology and penchant for neuroscience toward studying the molecular underpinnings of neuropsychiatric diseases.

 

Awards and Accomplishments

  • Keio Medical Science Prize (2018)
  • National Academy of Sciences (2018)
  • American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2018)
  • Lemelson-MIT Prize (2017)
  • Albany Medical Center Prize (2017)
  • Gairdner Foundation International Award (2016)
  • Tang Prize (2016)
  • Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award (2015)
  • Alan T. Waterman Award (2014)
  • Gabbay Award (2014)
  • NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2012)
  • Perl-UNC Prize (2011)

Follow Feng Zhang

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Tags
biochemistry biomedical science Cas13 Cas9 china CRISPR genetics genome genome-editing MIT molecular biology

Jury Members

2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Iannis Aifantis

Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology, New York University School of Medicine

Heran Darwin

Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine

Laurie Dempsey

Senior Editor, Nature Immunology, Nature Publishing Group

Yibin Kang

Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

Peter Palese

Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair of Microbiology, Professor of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Leslie Vosshall

Robin Chemers Neustein Professor, The Rockefeller University

Jedd Wolchok

Lloyd J. Old Chair for Clinical Investigation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
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Related Prize Recipients

Martin Jonikas

Martin Jonikas receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for molecular studies on Chlamydomonas, a model photosynthetic organism, with long-term implications for improving food-crop yield and combating climate change.
Portrait of Martin Jonikas

Harris Wang

Harris Wang receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for the development and application of Mutiplex Automated Genome Engineering (MAGE), a platform to track, program, and engineer entire microbial communities and ecosystems for a range of diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
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Amit Choudhary

Amit Choudhary receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for the identification of a fundamental force integral to the structures of biomolecules like proteins and DNA, and for improvements upon the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9.
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The explosion of new coronavirus tests that could help to end the pandemic

Feng Zhang, CRISPR co-discoverer and 2018 recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, developed an assay for the coronavirus to help researchers develop testing kits.
Feng Zhang at a bench in his lab
March 21, 2018

Feng Zhang: From ESL to Revolution

Credited with the development of transformative technologies such as CRISPR, Feng Zhang delights in helping others realize their potential. “Every person has their own creativity and their own way of thinking about problems,” Feng says. “That’s part of the joy too, seeing how you can help people realize an even bigger impact.”
Feng Zhang is standing in an aisle in his lab, dressed in a white lab coat.
March 2, 2020

Martin Jonikas: “Having a Diversity of Backgrounds Makes Us More Creative and Productive”

Martin Jonikas was born in Paris to parents of Polish origin. He grew up enamored with machines and flight. While pursuing an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from MIT, a required course in molecular biology awakened in him a true passion for the mechanics of living organisms.
Martin Jonikas, 2020 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise winner, on a New Jersey farm.

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