Recently, the Federation of Trade Unions Office of Guangming District in Shenzhen issued the "2023 Guangming District Labor Day Medal and Pioneer Worker Honor List".
Yi Xiao, a researcher from Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, won the “2023 Guangming District Labor Day Medal”.
Researcher Yi Xiao is dedicated to interdisciplinary research of evolutionary biology and synthetic biology. He developed a novel theory on biodiversity with experimental evidence provided, which was published in the renowned international journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)". This theory offered a fresh perspective on understanding biodiversity. Furthermore, he invented the TADR technology for directed evolution of living cells, which was published in the international journal "Science Advances" and was granted a batch of U.S. patents. This technology provides an important tool for the field of protein engineering.
Over the past five years, he has published research results, as the corresponding author, in professional journals like Science Advances, eLife, and Molecular Biology and Evolution. His lab focuses on "synthetic evolution", that is, using synthetic biology techniques under laboratory conditions to evolve into cell or macromolecule phenotypes not yet observed in nature. Some of the research deepens our understanding of life, while others aim to solve practical problems in production and daily life.
Yi Xiao set up his laboratory in Shenzhen's Engineering Biology Industry Innovation Center, which adopts the pioneering "upstairs-downstairs innovation and entrepreneurship complex" model in China. As the head, he led his research team to compete against teams from Harvard University and the University of California for directed evolution technology of living cells. He strove to apply this technology to industrial purposes and has already achieved noteworthy results, published in the internationally known journal "American Naturalist".
Beyond academic research, Researcher Yi Xiao also serves as the Secretary-General of the "Synthetic Biology Competition" sponsored by the Synthetic Biology Chapter of Chinese Society of Biotechnology. He is responsible for the preparation and organization of competitions. In July 2022, the 1st Synthetic Biology Competition was successfully held in Guangming District, Shenzhen, attracting 27 teams from 21 universities nationwide and with over 2.2 million people watching the live broadcast online. The event received widespread coverage from over 30 news media, including People's Daily, Sina, and Tencent, creating a brand-new international event for synthetic biology in Guangming District and contributing to the construction of the Greater Bay Area National Comprehensive Science Center's Pilot Zone.