At the beginning of 2015, Forbes did a series reports of 30 Under 30, in which there is 30 Under 30 young scientists that are going to change the world”. Some of them focus on Physical Medicine, some on discovering new planet, the others are trying to decipher the genomes of human and other creatures. Today, we are going to introduce some of these great scientists.
26-Year-Old Nevada Sanchez, Co-founder of Butterfly Network
Sanchez grew up in New Mexico. When he was ten, he said to his parents that he wanted to start a technology company when he grew up. His parents told him that he’d better go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) so as to realize his dream. Eight years later, he became a student of MIT, and had the opportunity to work in Max Tegmark’s laboratory in his undergraduate. Tegmark physicist in designing radio telescope, and has a good relationship with Jonathan Rothberg, one of the creators of next-generation DNA sequencing technology. Jonathan wnats to create an ultrasonic device with radio telescopes, so that he can achieve a more accurate image. His ultimate goal is apply sound waves into surgery. Sanchez said, ” I thought that was a chance, and I should seize it.” So he became a co-founder of Butterfly Network. The company got one hundred million US dollars in seed financing. Next year, Butterfly Network ‘s products would be saw in the market.
27-Year-Old Evelyn Auyeung, postdoctor of Columbia University
Some models are very small. Therefore, DNA is utilized as the assembling part. Evelyn Ouyang achieved the self-assembling of nanoparticles with DNA. This approach will not only expand our basic knowledge, but can create a more effective way of handling chemicals. Moreover, it is much safer.
28-Year-Old Vijay Chudasama, co-founder of Thiologics
Chudasama is studying the most popular question in the field of new biotech drugs—antibody binding. It is the very way that the immune system works with other drugs so as to mark and destroy specific substances or cells. This technology allows chemotherapy drugs to target at only tumor cells. Currently, he has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers, and has one patent registered.
29-Year-Old Eran Hodis, MD, Ph.D. of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
At the begining, Hodis studied yeast. Later on, he changed his subject because his mother was diagnosed with cancer direction. It was in his new study that he found a pair of mutations on melanoma cell genome, which was then proved to be the most common mutation in all cancers. This finding explains how cancer cells produce an enzyme named telomerase that is able to keep itself immortal.
22-Year-Old Patrick Hsu, postdoctoral research scholar of Broad Institute
Patrick studies the hottest case in the field of biology and biotechnology—modify human genome with a protein named Cas9. This protein derives from the CRISPR bacteria immune system. By carefully designed Cas9, Patrick can precisely edit a DNA that has never been heard of before. Now, he is trying to realize human gene therapy by taking advantages of this revolutionary technology.
