Shanghai Lingang, at the venue of the 2025 World Laureates Forum.

A Japanese scholar stood on the stage. His tone was calm, yet carried a certainty that was difficult to question. Hundreds of eyes were fixed on him. Some have called him “the Bob Dylan of chemistry”. Some regard him as a strong candidate for future Nobel recognition. Others know only one phrase: the crystalline sponge.

Makoto FUJITA, 2018 Wolf Prize laureate in Chemistry, Distinguished Professor at the University of Tokyo, and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, came to the World Laureates Forum for the first time in 2025.

Thirty years earlier, when he was just beginning this path, his peers had said to him: “This is not chemistry.”

A Long Quest That No One Believed In

In 1982, FUJITA completed his master’s degree at Chiba University and joined Sagami Chemical Research Center. At that time, he turned his attention to a direction that few in chemistry were seriously considering: molecular self-assembly.

Self-assembly refers to the spontaneous formation of ordered structures by molecular units through weak interactions. Biology had already demonstrated this phenomenon in protein folding and the DNA double helix. Yet at the time, few chemists believed that such a mechanism could be used to artificially synthesize new substances.

FUJITA found that the strength of the interaction between metal ions and organic molecules was well suited to controllable self-assembly. But the traditional chemical system did not readily accept this path. In the classical understanding of chemistry, the core of a chemical reaction lies in the breaking and formation of chemical bonds. Self-assembly driven by weak interactions was regarded only as chemistry in a broader sense.

“This is not chemistry.” FUJITA heard this criticism for a full decade.

He did not argue. Instead, he settled into the laboratory and continued his experiments. Starting with simple square-shaped molecules, he gradually built complex three-dimensional cage-like structures, synthesizing a series of molecules that had been difficult to prepare through traditional chemical methods. He once compared the common ground between scientific research and art in this way: “Researchers and creators are alike. Both create something from nothing. Rather than pursuing momentary popular results, we seek works that can influence a field for a long time. Even if few people understand them at first, time will allow them to travel across the world.”

WLF Material Science Forum at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

A Magic Sponge of Chemistry the Size of a Sugar Cube

In 2002, FUJITA began a line of research that appeared highly disruptive at the time. He set out to prepare three-dimensional cage-like porous frameworks assembled from metal ions and organic molecules, with cavities capable of capturing and accommodating guest molecules. Although other groups were exploring similar directions during the same period, none had achieved a decisive breakthrough.

After ten years of continued exploration, FUJITA’s team formally reported the revolutionary crystalline sponge method in 2013. Before this, X-ray molecular structure analysis had faced a century-old bottleneck: the compound to be analysed had to be grown into a complete single crystal before its structure could be determined. Many natural products and drug molecules are extremely difficult to crystallize. Some teams even spent large sums attempting crystallization experiments in space, with limited results.

The crystalline sponge method broke through this limitation. One needs only to take a porous crystalline sponge roughly the size of a sugar cube, immerse it in the solution of the target compound, and allow the solvent to evaporate slowly. The target molecules will automatically arrange themselves in an ordered manner inside the nanoscale pores of the sponge. Without needing to crystallize on their own, they can then be analysed directly by X-ray diffraction to reveal their complete molecular structure.

“The phenomenon had been in front of us for many years,” FUJITA said. “It took me and colleagues around the world ten years to realize its application value.” When the related paper was submitted to Nature, all three reviewers requested no revisions, and the article was accepted as submitted, an extremely rare occurrence in scientific publishing.

Visualizing Chemical Reactions Inside the Sponge

After the crystalline sponge method was established, FUJITA did not stop exploring. He proposed an even bolder idea: placing an entire chemical reaction inside the cavities of the sponge, and using X-rays to observe the reaction process in real time.

“Adsorb chemical substances into the sponge pores, add reagents to trigger a reaction, and then use X-rays to track the dynamic changes in molecular structure.” Before this, scientists could only infer reaction intermediates indirectly from spectroscopic data. FUJITA’s method made it possible to capture the whole reaction process visually, realizing the visualization of chemical reactions.

He has pursued this line of visualization research for nearly ten years. In March 2025, his team developed a second-generation crystalline sponge. The new cage-like porous framework can stably accommodate medium-sized molecular compounds with molecular weights above 1,000, greatly expanding the range of molecular structures that can be analysed. In May of the same year, his team used the self-assembly of peptides and metal ions to artificially construct a dodecahedral spherical molecular shell for the first time in the world.

From Rejection to Redefining a Field

In 2018, FUJITA shared the Wolf Prize in Chemistry with Omar YAGHI of the University of California, Berkeley, in recognition of their pioneering contributions to metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, and molecular self-assembly.

When speaking about the long-term value of his research, FUJITA once drew an analogy with Bob Dylan. Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature not simply because he created many widely sung songs, but because he opened a new expressive paradigm combining poetry and popular melody. In the same way, the true value of FUJITA and his team lies not only in the technical breakthrough of the crystalline sponge, but also in the establishment of a new logic for molecular construction: metal-ion-directed self-assembly. This has reshaped the way supramolecular chemistry is studied around the world.

“In the one or two hundred years of chemical development, there had never been such a system for constructing molecules. We successfully created and expanded a new method of molecular architecture.”

A Voice in Lingang

At the 2025 World Laureates Forum in Lingang, FUJITA delivered a keynote speech titled “Coordination Self-Assembly: From Its Origin to the Latest Advances”. He shared his understanding of the essence of scientific research: “The most precious part of research is discovering patterns that others have not noticed, and the pure joy brought by that discovery. If one can achieve something beyond what predecessors have done, that is the best reward.”

Compared with honours and titles, the calmness shaped by decades of concentrated research is what FUJITA values most. He believes that “the essence of science lies in creation and understanding. In science, biology and physics focus more on understanding, while chemistry alone places particular emphasis on creation.”

Once, his research direction was not understood by the mainstream academic community. Today, standing on a global stage of leading science, he has used a crystalline sponge the size of a sugar cube to overturn the traditional methods of chemical analysis.

Toward long-term research, FUJITA has always held a high standard of aspiration: “Set your goal at the summit of a high mountain. Even if you do not reach it, you will still rise far higher than if you had aimed only for a small hill.”

When Wesley I. SUNDQUIST stepped onto the stage of the WLA Prize Ceremony, the biochemist from the University of Utah was also beginning his first formal encounter with Shanghai.

Not long before the ceremony, he took a night cruise along the Huangpu River. The illuminated skyline, with Shanghai’s three landmark towers outlined against the night, left a strong impression on him. That journey on the river also marked the beginning of his first visit to China. Together with Scott D. EMR, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, SUNDQUIST received the 2025 World Laureates Association Prize in Life Science or Medicine. The two scientists have known each other for twenty-five years, and have long been research partners in a shared scientific exploration.

A Lifelong Pursuit

SUNDQUIST became fascinated by the molecular structures of chemistry at a young age. He grew up first in St. Paul, Minnesota, and later in Washington, D.C. As an undergraduate, he received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Carleton College, before pursuing a PhD in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After completing his doctorate, he travelled to the United Kingdom for postdoctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He also carried out a period of research at the University of Wisconsin.

In 1992, SUNDQUIST joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah. He is now Samuels Professor and Distinguished Professor, and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry. Through his influential research on viral mechanisms and cellular pathways, he has been elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For many years, he has pursued two closely connected lines of research: the mechanisms of HIV assembly and the ESCRT pathway in cellular sorting.

2025 World Laureates Forum

The Viral Science Code Inside an “Ice Cream Cone”

On October 23, shortly before the opening of the Forum, SUNDQUIST entered a lecture hall at a Shanghai university and used animated demonstrations to explain molecular microbiological mechanisms. Green ESCRT-III proteins formed a dome-like structure. VPS4 proteins wrapped around and pulled on the tail of ESCRT-III. Multiple molecules worked together to complete the process of HIV budding.

As a leading authority in global HIV research, he admitted in an interview, with a slightly shy smile, that he had once compared the conical HIV capsid to an ice cream cone, a comparison that drew teasing from his laboratory colleagues. Behind this vivid analogy lies decades of sustained work by his team. “In the laboratory, we have always focused on two central questions,” SUNDQUIST said. “First, what is the essential role of the viral capsid in viral replication? Second, how does the virus use the capsid to complete proliferation and transmission?” His team found that even a slight change in capsid structure can cause the virus to lose its infectivity.

“No one expected that such a small capsid could determine the life or death of a virus,” SUNDQUIST said. “That is precisely the beauty of basic research. You can never predict the final answer.”

WLF Life Science Forum at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

Curiosity: The Inexhaustible Driving Force of Basic Research

For SUNDQUIST, every scientific exploration begins with pure curiosity. “Curiosity drives us to take apart unknown things. It is no different from the force that leads mountaineers to challenge high peaks. It pushes us to keep exploring how molecular machines work.”

In his acceptance remarks, he emphasized, “Most of the research recognized by this award was completed twenty-five to thirty years ago. When we began exploring the fundamental mechanisms of viruses and cells, we had no idea that the work would eventually lead to drugs capable of changing the course of an epidemic. This is powerful evidence that basic research is the foundation of biomedical development.”

Twenty years ago, SUNDQUIST’s team began studying how the conical viral capsid assembles, driven at first simply by curiosity about the beauty of molecular structure. Yet this pure basic exploration ultimately helped lead to a new long-acting HIV prevention drug. Today, around 1.3 million people worldwide are still newly infected with HIV each year. Wider access to lenacapavir is expected to substantially reduce new infections.

A Voice in Lingang

All three laureates of this year’s WLA Prize were participating in the World Laureates Forum for the first time. For SUNDQUIST, the Forum’s rich and diverse academic agenda, together with high-quality interdisciplinary exchange, proved deeply rewarding.

“When I walk out of the laboratory, I can see the Rocky Mountains stretching into the distance. From my office, it takes only fifteen minutes to walk to the University of Utah. The mountains have always provided a continuous source of inspiration for my research,” SUNDQUIST said.

Surrounded day after day by mountains, his scientific gaze has remained fixed on the microscopic structures of life at the nanoscale. From the Rocky Mountains to Dishui Lake, from the fundamental mechanisms of the cell to the structure of the HIV capsid, from curiosity-driven basic research to innovative medicines that protect life, the scientific journey of Wesley I. SUNDQUIST is a vivid expression of how basic science can change the course of human life.

Lingang witnessed this scientific dialogue across mountains and oceans. Receiving the prize was only one part of SUNDQUIST’s journey to Shanghai. What he brought with him was a moving reflection on the original spirit of research, the value of basic science, and the future of global public health.

At the venue of the 2025 World Laureates Forum, we met a scientist attending the Forum for the first time. He spoke with measured calm, and his eyes carried a quiet strength.

At the WLA Prize Ceremony, Scott D. EMR, Professor Emeritus of Cell and Molecular Biology in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University, and Wesley SUNDQUIST, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Utah, were jointly awarded the World Laureates Association Prize in Life Science or Medicine. With a single-prize award of RMB 10 million, it is among the most substantial scientific prizes in the world.

“When I received the phone call informing me of the award, I was deeply excited,” EMR said in his acceptance remarks. “To receive such high recognition from my peers means a great deal to me. At the same time, to join the distinguished group of previous laureates is both an honour and a humbling experience.”

He spoke in particular of his 25-year collaboration with SUNDQUIST. “Over the past 25 years, our two laboratories have worked closely together, openly sharing data and ideas. This spirit of collaboration, grounded in mutual trust and candid scientific exchange, greatly accelerated our progress and enabled us to solve complex scientific problems more efficiently than either of us could have done alone.” He also expressed deep gratitude to two mentors from his formative years: Tom SILHAVY, his graduate adviser at Harvard University, and Randy SCHEKMAN, his postdoctoral adviser at the University of California, Berkeley.

Where a Boy’s Scientific Dream Began

EMR grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey, close to the George Washington Bridge and just across the river from New York City. Every Christmas, his parents found a way to buy him the microscope, chemistry set, or telescope he had hoped for. In the late 1960s, the television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau made a lasting impression on him. He decided to apply to universities with strong programs in oceanography. In 1972, he entered the University of Rhode Island to study biology.

After he had the opportunity to sail into the Atlantic on a research vessel, he soon realized that the oceanographic research being conducted at the time was not quite as exciting as it had appeared on television. In his third year, a genetics course and a microbiology laboratory course introduced him to the power of genetics. He applied to the graduate program in microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard University. Those four years became among the most exciting of his life. “It was a time before the internet and personal computers,” he recalled. “I was absorbed in my own research, and fascinated by the excitement of new discoveries.”

WLF Life Science Forum at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

A Breakthrough Born from Failure

In 1980, EMR applied for a postdoctoral position in Randy SCHEKMAN’s laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, expanding his research from E. coli to yeast. At first, the project he pursued in SCHEKMAN’s laboratory did not succeed. “Yet I was not discouraged,” he later recalled. “Instead, I worked harder, and returned to what I had learned during graduate school.” Within only a few weeks, he successfully developed several useful gene fusion methods in yeast.

A year later, the California Institute of Technology offered him a faculty position. He designed a genetic strategy based on gene fusion to identify the genes in yeast that encoded the cellular machinery required to build the vacuole. Within a few years, his group had identified mutations in 33 genes, which they named VPS, for vacuolar protein sorting. At the same time, the laboratory of Tom STEVENS at the University of Oregon independently isolated similar yeast mutants. Together, the two groups identified more than 40 VPS genes.

“At that time, we could not predict where studies of these genes would lead,” EMR said. “But the team continued to analyse the biochemical functions of the VPS-encoded proteins.” These studies would sustain his laboratory for nearly four decades, and laid an essential foundation for the discovery of the ESCRT complexes.

WLF Life Science Forum at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

ESCRT: The Cell’s Gatekeeper

ESCRT stands for Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport, and is pronounced much like “escort”. This family of protein complexes can reshape cellular membranes, driving local membrane structures to bend inward toward the cytoplasm. In doing so, ESCRT supports many core physiological activities of the cell: sorting and transporting biomolecules, clearing cellular metabolic waste, and regulating key processes such as cell division, neuronal remodelling, and immune responses.

When ESCRT function is disrupted, cells may lose control over proliferation, contributing to tumours, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. A number of viruses, including HIV, can also hijack the ESCRT machinery to escape from host cells. EMR’s team identified more than a dozen ESCRT proteins in yeast, and clarified their mechanisms in lipid phosphorylation recognition, cargo sorting, and membrane remodelling.

“Based on the work of our laboratory and colleagues around the world,” EMR said, “there are now several new drug development pipelines that may offer new therapeutic approaches for certain cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.”

 2025 World Laureates Forum

Four Decades of Academic Footprints

EMR has held faculty positions at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego. In 2007, he joined Cornell University, where he became the founding director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology.

EMR has received many major international academic honours:

2021
Awarded the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine

2022
Received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ESCRT Biology Meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, in recognition of his status as a founding figure in the field

2024
Awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

A Voice in Lingang

At the 2025 World Laureates Forum, EMR delivered a keynote speech. Peter John LOEWEN, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, has said, “Scott EMR’s pioneering leadership in revealing the ESCRT pathway powerfully demonstrates why basic research is essential to advances in health care. Thanks to his research, our deeper understanding of healthy cellular function will help treat some of the most serious and widespread diseases we face today.”

When asked what message he would offer to the younger generation, EMR referred to the unsuccessful early period of his postdoctoral work. “In the face of failure, do not be discouraged. Work harder, return to the fundamentals, and learn again.” This may be the lesson he leaves to young scholars at the World Laureates Forum: the resilience of a scientist who moved from being the son of a button-factory family to becoming a “gatekeeper” of the cell, and the conviction that basic research can, in time, change the world.

“I am deeply grateful to my family, who have brought endless love and joy into my life.” That warmth from family has supported a scientist through four decades of exploration.

At the venue of the 2025 World Laureates Forum in Shanghai Lingang, we met a scientist attending the Forum for the first time, Clifford Paul BRANGWYNNE. Wearing glasses, he spoke with gestures that seemed to trace the microscopic world inside the cell. His tone carried the quiet certainty of an engineer.

BRANGWYNNE and Anthony HYMAN received the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, sharing a three-million-dollar award, one of the most substantial prizes in global science. They were recognized for “discovering a fundamental mechanism of cellular organization mediated by phase separation of proteins and RNA into membraneless droplets”. The discovery has been described as a fundamental advance in understanding cellular organization, with future potential for clinical applications, including the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS.

Less widely known is that the scientist who helped reshape cell biology studied materials science and engineering as an undergraduate, and also minored in physics. Across his career, he has pursued one central task: turning the lenses of physics and engineering toward biology.

Cells Are Not “Soup,” They Are “Jungle”

Before BRANGWYNNE’s work emerged, the prevailing view in the field was that internal cellular structures were divided by biological membranes, like separate soap bubbles. In 2009, the paper he published with HYMAN in Science changed this understanding. Many functional structures inside cells, they showed, are more like suspended droplets. Biomolecules can spontaneously condense through phase separation, forming liquid condensates without surrounding membranes.

Phase separation is a familiar phenomenon in everyday life. Oil and water do not mix; water vapour condenses into droplets when cooled. Both are examples of this physical process. Yet no one had previously connected it to the mechanisms of cellular organization. BRANGWYNNE’s breakthrough was to demonstrate that biological macromolecules such as proteins and RNA can condense inside cells into distinct droplets, naturally separated from the surrounding aqueous environment.

Philip LE DUC, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, offered an image to explain the change in perspective. Many people may imagine a cell as a bowl of soup with a few noodles floating inside, “but it is actually more like a jungle”. Although the cell interior is extremely crowded, cells remain able to operate efficiently through mechanisms such as phase separation. LE DUC has noted that BRANGWYNNE opened a highly influential new direction of research, reshaping the field’s conceptual framework with exceptional creativity.

Youth Scientists Conference at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

An Unconventional Path

BRANGWYNNE’s own path is itself a story about the courage to cross boundaries.

He grew up in a working-class family in the Boston area, among relatives who included plumbers, painters, electricians, and nurses. He was the first generation in his family to attend university. After entering Carnegie Mellon University, he had a broad but uncertain interest in psychology, Spanish, and biology, and did not yet know that he would move toward engineering. In his first year, he took an introductory materials course simply because he had once had an interesting conversation in high school with an MIT graduate student in materials science. He was soon drawn into the field.

Even while majoring in materials science and engineering, he minored in physics. In his second year, he began working in a biology laboratory. Later, he took a year away from his studies to continue exploring cells in a laboratory at Harvard University. At first, the courses in materials science and engineering seemed unrelated to the biological research he was doing. Yet in many ways, his career has been devoted to bridging these two fields, and, as he has said, “it all began at Carnegie Mellon University”.

In 2007, BRANGWYNNE received his PhD in applied physics from Harvard University. He then joined HYMAN’s laboratory at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics as a postdoctoral researcher. It was there that he and HYMAN made the discovery that would change cell biology.

In 2011, he joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. At that time, the 2009 paper had been cited fewer than ten times. Yet he and his colleagues continued to produce new work, gradually extending the original discovery. Slowly, a scientific community began to notice this new field and join it. Today, researchers have shown that liquid-liquid phase separation regulates protein assembly, gene expression, immune responses, and cell proliferation, while its abnormal imbalance may contribute to cancer and a range of other diseases.

Youth Scientists Conference

From Basic Theory to Precision Clinical Therapy

The Breakthrough Prize announcement noted that BRANGWYNNE’s discovery may one day be applied clinically, including in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS.

In 2012, researchers began linking dysregulated phase separation to Alzheimer’s disease and ALS.
In 2017, related mechanisms were shown to be deeply involved in gene regulation.

In his keynote speech at the World Laureates Forum, BRANGWYNNE used vivid analogies to explain his research. The cell, he said, is not a rigid mechanical model as often presented in textbooks. It is a continuously dynamic, self-assembling liquid molecular system. Macromolecules such as proteins can gather within seconds into droplets ranging from nanometres to micrometres in size, perform physiological functions, and then rapidly disperse.

He presented several innovative tools developed by his team: generating droplets at designated genomic sites within ten seconds; quantifying chromatin elasticity in living cells for the first time by measuring the “capillary forces” produced as droplets contract; and using deep learning to analyse changes in nucleolar morphology, allowing drug EC50 values to be predicted from microscope images alone. More importantly, based on these platforms, his team has identified small molecules capable of reversing excessive nucleolar activation. These molecules have shown tumour-suppressing effects in animal models, and related drug candidates have entered preclinical evaluation. He emphasized that over the next five to ten years, “phase-separation drugs” may become a new direction in precision therapy.

WLF Möbius Night at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

A Voice in Lingang

At the 2025 World Laureates Forum, BRANGWYNNE took part in several dialogues and exchanges. He encouraged young scholars in the audience to “look at biological problems through physical thinking, and use engineering methods to test scientific hypotheses.” This is a faithful expression of his own research philosophy: to cross boundaries with courage, and to turn the lenses of different disciplines toward the same question.

His scientific journey, from materials science to biology, from physics to engineering, and from basic research to drug development, has challenged convention at almost every step. He has said that he was “very fortunate to work with outstanding collaborators in opening this new field”. Yet he also knows that it all began with a choice that did not appear entirely reasonable at the time.

When asked what message he would offer to the younger generation, he said, “I think you have to be a little bold, a little brave, and follow your heart and your interests, even if they may not seem completely reasonable to others.”

This may be the most valuable gift BRANGWYNNE brought to the 2025 World Laureates Forum: the courage to cross disciplinary boundaries, and to rewrite cell biology in the language of physics. Through his own experience, he has shown that true innovation often emerges at the intersections of disciplines. When basic research meets clinical need, and when physical thinking embraces the life sciences, breakthroughs that once seemed distant may eventually reach the patient’s bedside.

As he often tells young scholars: “Be brave, and follow your heart.”

If listening to Bach in a Gothic church can inspire “creative tension”, what kind of inner polyphony might he have felt when standing on the stage of the 2025 World Laureates Forum?

He was the German representative at this year’s Forum, and the 2020 Eni Award laureate for Advanced Environmental Solutions: Jürgen CARO. When he spoke about the connection between Nobel laureate Gerhard ERTL and Leibniz University Hannover, his tone was as calm as if he were describing an ordinary diffusion experiment. Yet his life has been far from calm. The Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic was closed. A start-up company went bankrupt. Research institutes were dissolved twice. Over half a lifetime, he has answered one question: how many times must a scientist fall before standing firm?

A Life of Ups and Downs

During the 2025 World Laureates Forum, Professor CARO was interviewed by several Chinese media outlets, including People’s Daily. The related report appeared on the front page of the Sunday edition, and within only a few days, it had been read more than two million times.

What kind of story could move so many readers?

Professor CARO told his life story with remarkable calm. After the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic, the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, where he worked, was closed, and he became unemployed for the first time. He then tried to start a company developing synthetic zeolite adsorbents and catalysts, hoping to begin again from the ground up. The company eventually went bankrupt. Later, the local Institute of Applied Chemistry was rebuilt, but it was again closed when funding could not be sustained, and he lost his job for a second time. A newly established Institute of Applied Catalysis later took root in Berlin, but under the combined pressure of resource imbalances within the West German research system and intense funding competition, it also struggled to survive. The team eventually moved as a whole to Rostock.

In the end, CARO found a new and lasting scientific home at Leibniz University Hannover, where he would spend the next twenty years.

There is no sentimentality in this account, only quiet narration. Yet it is precisely this calm that allowed countless readers to see another quality of a scientist, not extraordinary talent alone, but the ability to rise again after repeated setbacks.

Materials Science Conference at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

From Nanopores to an Energy-Efficient Future

In the 2020 Eni Award for Advanced Environmental Solutions, presented in October 2021, CARO shared the honour with his doctoral adviser, Jörg KÄRGER. The award carried a prize of 200,000 euros, and is often described as a major international honour in energy and environmental research. It recognized their pioneering work on “mass transfer in nanoporous materials: paradigm shift and technological development for advanced environmental solutions”.

CARO’s research focuses on zeolite molecular sieves, membrane materials, and catalysts. The new membrane materials he has developed enable energy-efficient gas separation and process intensification in catalytic membrane reactors, with important implications for hydrogen energy, carbon dioxide capture, and sustainable chemical engineering. He has published hundreds of academic papers, holds dozens of granted patents, and has long maintained an h-index above 80. In 2013, he received the Breck Award from the International Zeolite Association. In 2016, he was elected a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He is also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and has served as President of the German Catalysis Society.

In his address at the Materials Science Conference of the 2025 World Laureates Forum, Professor CARO said, “Materials science will promote the development of efficient, harmless, and recyclable new materials. While meeting the energy needs of everyday life and production, it will also help curb environmental pollution and prevent the unnecessary waste of production resources.” Bringing scientific knowledge out of the laboratory and into industrial practice is a powerful force for moving society toward ecological sustainability.

Exchange at the Materials Science Conference

From Hannover to China

CARO’s connection with the Chinese scientific community is deeper than many might imagine. From 2018 to 2023, he served as a full professor at both Leibniz University Hannover in Germany and South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China. Over those five years, he trained Chinese doctoral students, co-authored a number of high-level papers with Chinese teams, and travelled frequently between China and Germany.

When speaking about his experience in China, CARO expressed strong appreciation for the country’s active research atmosphere. He believes that young Chinese scholars think energetically, dare to raise questions, and are willing to explore interdisciplinary fields. During his years teaching in Guangzhou, he was also deeply drawn to the local food and culture. Even while travelling regularly between China and Germany, he maintained one habit: returning to Berlin on weekends to spend time with his family.

His trip to Shanghai Lingang in 2025 marked his first participation in the World Laureates Forum. He not only delivered a keynote speech, but also took part in several dialogues with young scientists. When a Chinese doctoral student asked how to view experimental failure, he drew on decades of scientific experience and offered a simple reflection: a research career is naturally accompanied by repeated failures. What matters is the ability to regain composure after falling, and to continue moving forward.

Keynote speech at the Materials Science Conference of the 2025 World Laureates Forum

A Complex and Authentic Scientist

In an interview in 2003, CARO was once asked how his family and friends would describe him. His answer was both candid and amusing: “The descriptions vary widely. Some say I am easy-going; some say he listens well. Some say I am patient; others say impulsive. Some say honest; others say too polite. Some say I love sport; others say lazy.” This self-portrait reveals a genuine, multidimensional, and unconventional mind.

He enjoys listening to Bach in the atmosphere of Gothic churches. He likes detective novels, and exploring abandoned silver mines. Had he not become a scientist, he would have wanted to be a doctor, “because this profession perfectly combines scientific knowledge, human interaction, and altruism.” The scientist he most admires is Leibniz, “one of the last truly universal scholars”.

This curiosity across disciplines is also present in his scientific philosophy. He once said, “When I attend conferences that are not exactly in my current field, but not too far from it either, the best ideas often appear in my mind.”

A Voice in Lingang

In Lingang, Professor CARO drew on his own experience to speak to young scientists in the audience. They should not be troubled by a single failure, or even by a series of failures. The path of research depends on long-term persistence. It is a long-distance run that requires endurance, not a sprint measured by short-term speed.

This may be the spirit for which Jürgen CARO is most worth remembering. A chemist who emerged from the ruins of East Germany, he experienced two periods of unemployment and one bankruptcy, yet never gave up his exploration of the molecular world inside nanopores. Through half a lifetime of work, he has shown that true scientific breakthroughs require not only intelligence, but also a resilience that is almost stubborn.

As symbolized by his favourite image, the Vitruvian Man, he once wished he had four arms, four legs, and two heads, so that he could realize all his dreams. We believe that even with one body and one mind, he has already done so.

“We hope to use every available tool to deepen our understanding of the chemistry and physics of materials, and to help create a sustainable future for humanity.”

He said these words in 2023, when he received the Eni Energy Frontiers Award. Two years later, he received another major honour. The Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal in the Physical Sciences, one of the highest distinctions in British science.

In October 2025, Matthew ROSSEINSKY, a leading materials chemist at the University of Liverpool and Fellow of the Royal Society, came to Shanghai Lingang for the first time as a guest of the 2025 World Laureates Forum. Here, he shared his frontier explorations in using artificial intelligence and digital tools to “design” future materials, and opened a scientific dialogue across East and West.

The Cross-Disciplinary Journey of a Materials Designer

Materials are the foundation of human civilization. From mobile phones and electric vehicles to clean energy and sustainable manufacturing, nearly every technological advance depends on the renewal of material properties. Matthew ROSSEINSKY is a leading scientist who designs new materials at the atomic scale.

ROSSEINSKY graduated from the University of Oxford, where he received both his bachelor’s degree and doctorate in chemistry. After completing his PhD, he carried out postdoctoral research at Bell Laboratories. In 1992, he returned to Oxford as a faculty member. In 1999, he was appointed Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Liverpool, where he has since devoted more than two decades to materials chemistry.

Along the way, he has received a series of major international honours:

2008
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society

2011
Awarded the Hughes Medal

2017
Awarded the Davy Medal

2023
Received the Eni Energy Frontiers Award, a major international honour in energy research

2024
Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, for his contributions to materials chemistry research and innovation

2025
Awarded the Royal Medal in the Physical Sciences, a high recognition of his decades-long scientific career

Yet beyond these distinctions, ROSSEINSKY is most widely recognized for using digital tools to transform the traditional model of materials discovery.

Youth Scientists Conference

No Silver Bullet for Materials Discovery

If one asks Matthew ROSSEINSKY what makes materials science so compelling, he would point to one of the most fundamental challenges in science: controlling the arrangement of atoms and molecules to give materials new functions.

He believes this challenge has no single “magic solution”, because it involves both intrinsic properties at the atomic scale and the ways these properties can be changed through processing. For this reason, he is convinced that the research community must bring together chemistry, physics, and computational methods, gradually building a toolbox of solutions.

This is the direction to which ROSSEINSKY has devoted more than twenty years. His research spans fundamental chemistry and condensed matter physics, focusing on understanding and improving the performance of materials in energy storage and generation, communications, catalysis, and related fields. “The central challenge in discovering new materials,” he has said, “is predicting which combinations of atoms are stable enough to be isolated and made into materials.” He and his team are using digital tools to overcome this challenge, step by step.

From a Typical Day to an Atypical Breakthrough

At the Department of Chemistry of the University of Liverpool, ROSSEINSKY leads a multidisciplinary team that includes postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and collaborators from industrial partners such as Unilever, Johnson Matthey, Ceres Power, and NSG Pilkington. When asked what a “typical day” in the laboratory looks like, he answered with humour: “I am not sure there is such a thing as a typical day. But deep discussions within the group about new data, continuing exchanges with collaborators, and trying to repair critical equipment that always seems to fail at the least convenient moment, all appear quite often.”

It is from these daily conversations and moments of repair that a series of major advances have emerged. His team has developed new computational techniques and combined them with experimental work to accelerate the identification of new materials with enhanced properties. For example, they successfully designed a material that combines ferromagnetism and electric polarization at room temperature. This was not only a major challenge in fundamental science, but also carries important implications for future technologies in information processing and storage.

In recent years, ROSSEINSKY has gone further, integrating physics-based computational models with machine learning based on experimental data. In doing so, he has helped establish a new paradigm of digitally driven materials discovery. This approach can predict stable chemical compositions through computation, before validating them through synthesis in the laboratory. “We can make excellent materials in the laboratory that go beyond any existing precedent,” he said.

 WLF Möbius Night at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

The Royal Society’s Royal Medal

In 2025, ROSSEINSKY’s scientific achievements again received one of the highest forms of recognition in the field. He was awarded the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in the Physical Sciences for his pioneering contributions to materials design and discovery, which have redefined approaches to the synthetic creation of functional materials and transformed research and development through digital tools. The Royal Medal was established in 1825 and first awarded in 1826. Its past recipients include many major figures in science, including Francis CRICK and Frederick SANGER.

Upon receiving the news, ROSSEINSKY said the award reflected the important role played by materials chemistry and the wider condensed matter sciences in everyday life. He expressed particular gratitude to the individuals and institutions that had supported him over the past twenty-five years, especially the multidisciplinary team at the University of Liverpool, major industrial partners, and funding bodies including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust. Their support has been vital to the development of the University of Liverpool’s Materials Innovation Factory in artificial intelligence-driven materials design and discovery.

The Digital Future of Energy Materials

ROSSEINSKY’s research has always been closely connected to some of the defining challenges of our time: population growth, climate change, and the development of sustainable energy. He believes that designing and discovering new materials through digital methods is a key path toward addressing global challenges.

His team has made important achievements in energy materials. Using digital technologies, they have experimentally realized new material structures. By combining structure prediction and machine learning, they have developed new materials with strong overall performance. They have also synthesized solid materials containing three different functional anions, enabling precise control of thermal conductivity. These results not only deepen human understanding of the material world, but also open new directions for the development of next-generation batteries, fuel cells, and industrial catalysts.

At the Youth Scientists Conference of the 2025 World Laureates Forum, ROSSEINSKY shared frontier research on how digital tools can empower innovation in energy materials. He emphasized the importance of making full use of diverse technologies, exploring the internal laws of materials chemistry and physics, and working together toward a sustainable future. His sincere sharing was warmly received, and allowed young researchers from around the world to experience the appeal of cross-disciplinary research.

Youth Scientists Conference at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

When younger researchers sought his advice, ROSSEINSKY did not offer abstract instruction. Instead, he drew on his own laboratory experience. He remarked with a smile that repairing faulty equipment often trains the mind more deeply than an experiment that proceeds smoothly from beginning to end. Materials discovery has no shortcut that can be achieved in a single step. The whole field needs to integrate knowledge from multiple areas, accumulate gradually, and build a complete research system.

“Do not be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, and do not fear failure. Talk more, collaborate more, and take each immediate problem seriously. The answer is often hidden within it.”

From Oxford to Bell Laboratories, from Liverpool to Shanghai Lingang, Matthew ROSSEINSKY has continued to cross disciplinary boundaries, reshaping the paradigm of materials research and development through artificial intelligence and digital technologies. Through his work, he has shown that the materials of the future may no longer be merely “discovered” by chance, but precisely “designed”. Shanghai Lingang is witnessing this materials revolution as it gradually changes the world.

When everyone asked, “Are you serious?”, he answered with half a century of persistence.

In October 2025, in Shanghai Lingang, French biophysicist and entrepreneur Pascal MAYER stood on the stage of the World Laureates Forum. His expression was gentle, yet assured. The unconventional idea once questioned by his peers has now become a core technology in global genome sequencing. The young man once regarded as “unrealistic” is now a recipient of both the 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2024 Canada Gairdner International Award.

“This is my first time in China. Everything here feels new to me,” he said.

More than half a year later, in May 2026, MAYER, together with British chemists Sir David KLENERMAN and Sir Shankar BALASUBRAMANIAN, received the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, in recognition of their development of today’s most widely used next-generation DNA sequencing technology.

From a Mining Town Boy to a Sequencing Pioneer

MAYER’s scientific journey began with an almost instinctive longing.

He was born in Moselle, in northeastern France, a region known for mining. Many young people of his generation hoped to find stable work in the mines. MAYER, however, was drawn to molecules, life, and the unknown.

At the age of seven, he took apart the transformer of a toy train. In primary school, he solved a mathematics problem that no one else in his class could answer. In high school, he persuaded his father to buy him a programmable calculator, and used it to write a primitive neural network. At a time when personal computers were not yet common, this was already an unusually forward-looking experiment.

After graduating from high school, he entered the University of Strasbourg, becoming the first university student in his family. Over the following decades, his path would take him through research institutions in France, Canada, and Switzerland. His work crossed biology, computer programming, and instrument engineering.

“Many mentors and colleagues taught me to think across disciplines, and to solve problems in different ways,” he said. “This shaped my career.”

Challenging the Impossible

In 1996, near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, MAYER drew a sketch in his notebook that would help change the history of science. The idea was to cut DNA molecules into small fragments, attach them all to a solid surface, and read their sequences simultaneously under a microscope. At the time, the Human Genome Project had only recently begun. DNA sequencing still relied on the Sanger method, which read and verified DNA strand by strand. It was expensive and slow. Sequencing a complete human genome could take months and cost millions of euros. When MAYER proposed a new method based on simultaneous reading, his peers found it difficult to believe. “Are you serious?” they asked.

Faced with doubt, he did not retreat. He focused instead on three simple things: an ordinary optical microscope, inexpensive glass slides, and experiments repeated until they could be trusted. He often compared his pursuit to taking attendance in a classroom. “Traditional sequencing is like a teacher asking one by one: Is John here? Is Amy here?” he explained. “My new method was like taking attendance all at once, completing the process quickly and at low cost.”

In 2004, Manteia, the company co-founded by MAYER, transferred the core intellectual property of this technology to Solexa. Built upon this foundation, the platform later developed by Solexa became a central part of Illumina’s high-throughput sequencing system. This original design, known as bridge PCR amplification, or DNA cluster technology, overcame key engineering obstacles in second-generation sequencing, also known as next-generation sequencing, or NGS. It addressed the need for chemical signal amplification and high read density. Before the technology emerged, resequencing a complete human genome could take months and cost millions of dollars. Today, a whole genome can be sequenced in a single day, at a cost of about 600 US dollars. NGS has transformed the life sciences. It is now widely used in clinical screening for cancer biomarkers, genetic tracing of rare diseases, forensic identification, and many other fields. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it also provided essential support for the rapid identification and continuous monitoring of viral variants. It has become one of the foundational technologies of modern life science.

In 2022, MAYER, Sir David KLENERMAN, and Sir Shankar BALASUBRAMANIAN received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for developing a low-cost, robust method for large-scale DNA sequencing that transformed scientific and medical practice. In 2024, the three scientists received the Canada Gairdner International Award, often regarded as a significant indicator of future Nobel recognition. Ninety-eight Gairdner laureates have later received the Nobel Prize. In 2026, they were further honoured with the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

Youth Scientists Conference

When Science Meets Artificial Intelligence

Guided by a belief in simplifying complexity, the scientist who once helped advance a revolution in second-generation DNA sequencing with a microscope continues to challenge what appears impossible.

In 2014, MAYER founded the biotechnology company Alphanosos and became its CEO. He led his team in applying artificial intelligence algorithms to combine natural edible plant extracts into safe, compliant, and independently patented compound formulations, with directions including antibacterial, antiviral, and antitumour applications. After the outbreak of COVID-19, amid the continuous emergence of viral variants, the formulation maintained promising efficacy. It also revealed the value and advantages of multi-target therapeutic strategies.

When asked whether priority should be given to compound medicines or single-molecule drugs, MAYER offered a practical reflection. An engineer who builds a bridge may not need to investigate every detail of structural mechanics. A scientist may be skilled at analysing why a bridge collapses. But for patients suffering from disease, what matters most is whether the bridge allows them to cross.

For MAYER, solving the problem first, and then exploring the underlying principle, is also a rigorous and committed form of scientific pursuit.

Youth Scientists Conference at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

Hoping to Inspire the Younger Generation to Explore the Intersections of Disciplines

In May 2026, after receiving the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, MAYER said that the emergence of next-generation sequencing was the result of curiosity-driven scientific research, interdisciplinary thinking, and outstanding collaboration across institutions and national borders. He hoped that the award would encourage the younger generation to continue exploring the fertile intersections between scientific disciplines, and to help build a better world for future generations.

This is Pascal MAYER, a child from a mining region in France who crossed physics, biology, and computing with an uncommon courage. With the wisdom of simplifying complexity, he helped reshape genome sequencing. As both a CEO and a scholar, he has brought artificial intelligence together with natural medicines, and continues to move toward the unknown. At the World Laureates Forum, he remained active in the same pursuit that has defined his life: challenging what others regard as impossible.

From a mining town in Moselle, to a notebook by Lake Geneva that was once met with laughter, and then to the stage of the World Laureates Forum beside Dishui Lake, Pascal MAYER’s life offers a quiet lesson: true scientific breakthroughs often begin with an unconventional idea, and with a mind unwilling to give up.

He does not confine himself to disciplinary boundaries, nor does he follow prevailing assumptions without question. Faced with patients in need, he chooses first to build a bridge that can be crossed. Faced with the unknown, he chooses to work at the fertile intersections of disciplines. He is still building companies, still teaching, and still challenging the impossible.

The Shanghai Lingang Science and Technology Innovation Development Foundation was honoured to meet this sequencing pioneer at the 2025 World Laureates Forum. His story reminds us that the future of science belongs to those who dare to build bridges across unfamiliar ground. Lingang, too, seeks to become such a bridge, a place where ideas, disciplines, and people can meet, and where the next possibilities of science may begin to take form.

A physics student who had never taken a biology course.

How did he become one of the leading scientists reshaping the future of neurodegenerative disease?

In 1972, Don W. CLEVELAND, newly graduated from the Department of Physics at New Mexico State University, entered graduate school at Princeton University. His mind was still filled with equations in fluid dynamics. Then a biochemistry professor stopped him, and invited him to change direction.

“I had never taken any course in biology,” CLEVELAND later recalled. “I immediately felt that I was far behind the other students. That feeling has never entirely left me.”

This student, who had received no formal training in biology, would become a world-leading scientist in uncovering the molecular mechanisms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, and in pioneering antisense oligonucleotide therapies.

In October 2025, the 75-year-old authority on neurodegenerative disease came to Shanghai Lingang as a guest of the 2025 World Laureates Forum. At the venue beside Dishui Lake, he said, “What is needed to conquer ALS is only time.”

From Child of the Desert to Breakthrough Prize Laureate

“From the time I can remember, I wanted to be a scientist,” Don W. CLEVELAND said, looking back on his scientific career.

In 2018, he received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of an inherited form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and for establishing antisense oligonucleotide therapy in animal models of ALS and Huntington’s disease. The prize carried an award of three million US dollars, and is often described as one of the most prominent honours in modern science.

Today, CLEVELAND is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published more than 550 papers, which have been cited by peers more than 75,000 times.

Yet when asked to name the defining quality of a scientific career, CLEVELAND gives an answer that sounds almost old-fashioned.

“In biology and medicine, being smart is certainly useful, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. Being good at experiments is also useful, but again it is neither necessary nor sufficient,” he told us. “The only quality that is truly necessary for success is perseverance.”

This is the answer of a scientist who came from the desert, and who has tested that belief across a lifetime.

It was this persistence that later allowed him to open a path in a field that few believed would succeed, the use of customized DNA medicines to treat diseases of the nervous system.

ALS Association’s “Bet Against the Odds”

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS, is a devastating neurodegenerative disease. Muscles gradually weaken and waste away. A person may go from walking freely to being unable to speak, and eventually to paralysis, as if the body were slowly being frozen in place. More than a decade ago, the Ice Bucket Challenge brought global attention to the disease. For many, ALS became almost synonymous with an incurable diagnosis.

Don W. CLEVELAND is among those working, step by step, to erase that equation.

He describes the logic of his research in clear terms: identify which genes cause disease, or drive disease progression, and ask whether reducing their activity could provide an effective way to treat the disease.

Guided by this principle, he devoted himself to antisense oligonucleotide, or ASO, therapy. The approach uses customized DNA-based medicines that can be delivered broadly to the human nervous system, where they suppress the activity of disease-causing genes.

At the beginning, however, few believed the approach would work.

“There was deep skepticism in the field about whether this method could succeed,” CLEVELAND recalled.

In 2004, the ALS Association became the first to provide support. At a time when almost no one believed that gene silencing in the nervous system could be achieved, the Association offered the funding that made the work possible. This seed support allowed a line of research, once regarded by many as destined to fail, to take root.

Today, ASO therapy has expanded from ALS into clinical trials for spinal muscular atrophy, Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other conditions. It has also been approved for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, a childhood neurodegenerative disease. Many children with this condition would once have died from fatal paralysis within the first one or two years of life. After receiving this therapy, some of the oldest treated children are now seven years old, and are able to walk normally.

Exchange at the Youth Scientists Conference

A Breakthrough for 2%, a Promise for the Other 98%

In April 2023, tofersen, an antisense oligonucleotide drug developed with the participation of CLEVELAND’s team, was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration. In September of the following year, it was approved in China. It is the world’s first and currently only ALS medicine that targets a known genetic cause of the disease, reducing motor neuron damage at its source.

“The greatest challenge in conquering ALS is to understand where the problem truly lies,” CLEVELAND said.

At present, tofersen is applicable only to patients with ALS caused by mutations in the SOD1 gene. These patients account for about two percent of ALS cases worldwide. Yet this stage of progress has also brought hope to the remaining 98 percent.

CLEVELAND noted that highly promising targets are now being tested.

“What we need is only time,” he said.

Before coming to Shanghai for the 2025 World Laureates Forum, he had just attended a meeting in Budapest on ASO therapy research. Around 1,000 participants were present, together with representatives from approximately 100 companies.

“I believe that when we look back five years from now, what we have today will seem behind the times,” he said with confidence. “By then, better therapies will certainly have emerged.”

“Fighters Like Cai Lei Inspire Me”

CLEVELAND is not only an outstanding scientist. He is also deeply moved by those who continue to fight against disease.

When asked about Cai Lei, widely known in China for his struggle with ALS, CLEVELAND spoke with unmistakable respect.

“I have met Cai Lei twice. He is remarkable.”

In August 2024, Cai Lei’s research team formally appointed CLEVELAND as a scientific adviser, hoping to advance ALS research through international collaboration.

For CLEVELAND, Cai Lei’s perseverance is striking. Although his physical function continues to decline, Cai Lei has led his team in pursuing research and expanding cooperation with extraordinary determination.

“To remain brave, optimistic, and passionate in the face of a terminal disease is deeply inspiring,” CLEVELAND said. “It is also a motivation for us to keep moving forward.”

CLEVELAND has not only met Cai Lei. He also left him a note.

“I praised his courage, continuing to carry out these activities despite severe illness. I also admired his willingness to share these experiences through social media.”

Against the Tide, Eyes East

At a time when artificial intelligence is sweeping across almost every field, CLEVELAND retains the clarity of a traditional scientist.

“Almost everyone says AI will change everything, but I remain cautious about that,” he said. “Drug testing must be given sufficient time.”

Now in his seventies, CLEVELAND remains active at the front line of laboratory research. For decades, he has devoted himself to finding effective therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. His lifelong aim has been simple and profound, to move from helping one person, to ten people, and then to ten thousand.

When speaking about the future of science, CLEVELAND offered high praise for China’s research community.

“The future leaders of scientific development may well be in China,” he said.

Through his collaboration with Cai Lei’s team, he has been impressed by the creativity of Chinese colleagues.

“The improvements they have proposed may be better than the drugs we originally developed.”

“I have maintained long-term collaborations with several Chinese scientists,” he added. “One of them worked with me for twenty years, and is now at Westlake University.”

His words reflect the resilience and vitality of scientific exchange between China and the United States.

At the 2025 World Laureates Forum, CLEVELAND emphasized that the essence of science lies in collaboration. Bringing the world’s leading scientists together to discuss unresolved questions is, in his view, one of the best ways to move science forward.

This also speaks directly to the theme of this year’s Forum, “Future Science: Shanghai and the World.”

As the organizer of the Forum, the Shanghai Lingang Science and Technology Innovation Development Foundation remains committed to building an international platform for scientific exchange. The presence of Professor Don W. CLEVELAND, and the scientific spirit he represents, offers a vivid expression of our mission to promote scientific and technological innovation in service of human well-being.

CLEVELAND left young scientists with a piece of advice.

“What people generally accept as ‘facts’ may not actually be facts. First understand what is already known, then think carefully about what has truly been proven. After that, make your own judgment about what to do. Be brave. Do not be timid.”

This is the philosophy Don W. CLEVELAND has practiced throughout his life.

On the road toward treating ALS, he has never stopped moving forward. As he said, “We absolutely have the ability to treat some of these diseases effectively. For inherited forms of ALS, ASO therapy has already achieved partial reversal of disease.”

Perhaps, in the not too distant future, we may indeed see the day when the equation between ALS and incurability is erased completely.

In August 1997, inside the Panton Arms in Cambridge, a small group of scientists sat over beer, discussing a difficulty they had encountered in experiments with DNA polymerase.

They could not have known that an apparently ordinary conversation would help give rise to a technological revolution in the life sciences.

More than two decades later, the footsteps of one of those scientists would arrive on the coast of the East China Sea, in Shanghai Lingang.

At the 2025 World Laureates Forum, among many of the world’s leading scientists, one figure stood out. He carried a well-worn green backpack, moved briskly through the venue, and spoke with an energy that seemed difficult to contain.

He was Sir Shankar BALASUBRAMANIAN, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. He was also among the twelve laureates of major international scientific awards making their first appearance at this year’s World Laureates Forum.

“Bad at Football, So Became a Scientist”

Sir Shankar has never concealed the dream of his youth. He once wanted to become a professional footballer for Liverpool.

“I grew up in a place called Runcorn, near Liverpool. When I was not at home, I was outside playing football. I later became captain of the school team. It was only around the age of seventeen that I gave up that dream.”

A knee injury brought that ambition to an abrupt end.

Fortunately, science gained a chemist whose work would help change the world.

“I do not think of what I do as work,” he said. “Like many scientists, I do it because I am driven by curiosity and by the desire to explore. I have always wanted to understand how things work, whether machines, devices, or the world around us.”

From Blackboard to Pub

The Solexa sequencing technology co-invented by Sir Shankar BALASUBRAMANIAN and Sir David KLENERMAN, now known as Illumina next-generation DNA sequencing, or NGS, is widely regarded as one of the most important advances in twenty-first-century life sciences.

Its impact is difficult to overstate.

> In 2000, sequencing a single human genome required more than ten years and cost over one billion US dollars.

> Today, multiple whole human genomes can be sequenced in a single day, at a cost of less than one thousand US dollars per genome.

> The speed of sequencing has increased by roughly one million-fold.

More than one million human genomes have now been sequenced, while genome sequencing of animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses continues to advance in parallel. Without this technology, humanity’s understanding of cancer, rare genetic diseases, infectious diseases, and vaccine development would have progressed far more slowly.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, NGS enabled scientists to read and share the genetic code of the coronavirus rapidly, and to monitor the spread of emerging variants in real time.

Yet the origin of this technology was unusually modest.

In August 1997, in the Panton Arms in Cambridge, BALASUBRAMANIAN and KLENERMAN had reached an impasse in the laboratory. They stepped away from the bench, sat down over beer, and continued discussing their DNA polymerase experiments. In that relaxed and open atmosphere, the first sparks of what would become Solexa sequencing began to form.

“I think pubs are places for relaxation and free exchange,” Sir Shankar said. “Scientists need to spend a great deal of time thinking about experiments and data. But sometimes, stepping away briefly and looking at a problem from another angle can lead to inspiration.”

SharpMind Roundtable Dialogue at the Youth Scientists Conference

Failure Is the Best Teacher

Sir Shankar still keeps the original research proposal he wrote with KLENERMAN.

“The final outcome could not have been predicted from the proposal,” he said. “Yet it led to a commercialized method that is now changing the world.”

He often tells doctoral students and researchers that many of the things they try in the laboratory will fail.

“But if you never fail, it probably means you are not trying hard enough. The secret to success is to fail as quickly as possible. The path to the right answer often begins with failure.”

For him, scientific research is, by nature, unpredictable. Researchers should choose an important and interesting question with care, then pursue it deeply.

“Usually, it takes many years for an idea to develop into an important body of knowledge and understanding. Opportunities for transformative innovation often arrive unexpectedly, and a short-term research culture may cause them to be lost.”

He has therefore called on research funders to assess progress from a longer perspective. In particular, he hopes that project funding for young researchers can be extended to ten-year periods.

The Trio of Nucleic Acid Chemistry

Sir Shankar’s research extends far beyond sequencing technology. His contributions span fundamental chemistry and its applications in biology and medicine.

His work focuses on the chemistry, structure, and function of nucleic acids, and may be understood through three closely related directions.

01 The primary sequence of DNA, the foundation of genetics.

Solexa sequencing made routine, accurate, and low-cost human genome sequencing possible.

02 Concerns epigenetic modified bases.

His group developed chemical methods for decoding several forms of modified DNA bases across the genome.

03 The secondary structure of DNA, especially the G-quadruplex.

For more than two decades, his laboratory has studied this four-stranded DNA structure, making pioneering contributions to the understanding of its dynamic behaviour and biological function.

“Each exploration begins with chemistry,” he summarized in the Mendel Lecture, “and gradually moves toward biology and medicine.”

The Not So Cold Scientist

Thick lenses, close-cropped grey hair, a well-worn green backpack, and a brisk pace. At first glance, Sir Shankar may appear intense. Yet students often describe him in different words, warm, humorous, and full of curiosity.

His life has long carried a sense of crossing boundaries.

Born in India, he moved to the United Kingdom with his parents at the age of one. He attended an ordinary state school from which no student had previously gone to Cambridge, yet he entered the University of Cambridge with outstanding results. As an undergraduate, he worked as a DJ, specializing in hip-hop music in pubs. Before applying for a doctorate, he even considered moving to the United States with a friend to open a chain of bars.

After achieving international recognition, he developed a passion for collecting wine. He describes himself as a slow and careful cook. He also enjoys long-distance running, and has completed ultramarathons.

“I do not think I will ever stop being a scientist, at least not in the sense of thinking about science,” he said. “Every bottle of wine has a story.”

This “not so cold” scientist has also received a remarkable list of honours. He was knighted in 2017 for his services to science and medicine. In 2018, he received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. In 2021, he shared the Millennium Technology Prize with Sir David KLENERMAN. In 2022, he received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences with KLENERMAN and Pascal MAYER. In 2023, he was elected an international member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 2024, he received the Canada Gairdner International Award, often regarded as a significant indicator of future Nobel recognition.

Yet he remains unusually calm about such honours.

“Awards are honours. If they come, it is a great privilege,” he said. “But the greatest value of scientific awards is that they allow the public to see science, to see basic science, and to recognize exemplary scientific achievements.”

He has always believed that scientists do not pursue research in order to receive awards.

“Science itself already offers its own rewards to every researcher. If our work can make even a small contribution to society, that is the greatest satisfaction.”

WLF Möbius Night at the 2025 World Laureates Forum

A Voice in Lingang

At the Youth Scientists Conference of the 2025 World Laureates Forum, Sir Shankar joined many leading scholars in sending a clear message to young scientists around the world: support for high-risk research into the unknown remains insufficient.

We believe that truly transformative innovation often emerges from unexpected basic research. As Sir Shankar observed, “Basic research may take one hundred years, or even longer, before it has an impact on the world. To see one’s own research translated into practical use within one’s lifetime is deeply satisfying.”

Lingang is working to become such a fertile ground for innovation.

Here, we look forward to welcoming more scientists like Sir Shankar BALASUBRAMANIAN, scientists who bring curiosity, resilience, and long-term commitment, and who are ready to join China’s scientific community in writing the next chapters of discovery.

Twice a silver medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad in his youth, crowned with the Fields Medal at the age of 35, he later turned his attention from academic triumphs toward foundational education and artificial intelligence. Leaving the traditional academic world behind, he joined a Huawei research laboratory.

In Lingang, he offered a simple message, “Give young people sufficient time to explore new ideas and new methods.”

Laurent LAFFORGUE, recipient of the 2002 Fields Medal and member of the French Academy of Sciences.

He exchanged six years of silence for a single mathematical theorem, and devoted the wonder of the second half of his life to a discipline neglected by mainstream academia for more than sixty years: Alexandre GROTHENDIECK’s theory of topoi.

Shanghai Lingang, 2025 World Laureates Forum Youth Scientists Conference. During the SharpMind Roundtable Dialogue, LAFFORGUE engaged in conversation with young scientists from around the world. When asked what advice he would offer the younger generation, he replied:

“Give young people sufficient time to explore new ideas and new methods.”

Journey to the Temple of Mathematics

LAFFORGUE was born in 1966 in the southern suburbs of Paris. His mathematical talent emerged early: as a teenager, he won silver medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad for two consecutive years. In 1986, he entered the École Normale Supérieure, embarking on the most elite trajectory of French mathematics.

In 2002, at the age of 35, LAFFORGUE reached the highest stage in the discipline when he was awarded the Fields Medal. His prize-winning work established the Langlands correspondence for the general linear group GLr, over function fields. As many mathematicians observed, “Drinfeld’s proof was already extraordinarily difficult, while Lafforgue’s achievement was a feat of an entirely different scale, extending across hundreds of pages.”

The Langlands program has often been described as a “grand unified theory” of mathematics, seeking deep connections between number theory and harmonic analysis. LAFFORGUE not only achieved a decisive breakthrough, but also carried forward the work of two previous Fields Medalists, Pierre DELIGNE and Vladimir DRINFELD. The honor was unquestionably deserved.

Yet it soon became clear that this young Fields Medalist had no intention of remaining solely within the ivory tower.

A Lonely “Revolt”

After achieving international recognition, LAFFORGUE made a move that surprised many observers: he began openly criticizing the state of French primary and secondary education.

The turning point was a petition protesting the sharp reduction of Greek and Latin in school curricula. “Greek and Latin are only the tip of the iceberg,” LAFFORGUE argued. “The teaching of French itself is already in serious danger.” As he immersed himself in educational literature, he came to realize how profoundly French schools had changed since his own childhood.

In 2005, French President Jacques CHIRAC appointed him to the National Council for Higher Education. Yet only one day later, he was forced to resign. The reason was a sharply worded letter in which he questioned whether the council truly intended to reform education, or whether it would continue relying on the same “experts” who, in his view, had already led the system into crisis.

To LAFFORGUE, students are the primary victims of this collapse, while teachers themselves also suffer within the system. He firmly believes that children must genuinely understand arithmetic operations rather than simply rely on calculators. “The calculations students learn become nourishment for the mind,” he argued. “Calculations delegated entirely to machines awaken no human potential.”

His remarks sparked intense controversy at the time, yet he never retreated from his position.

“SharpMind Roundtable Dialogue” at the Youth Scientists Conference

Forgotten for sixty years, the topos — Huawei caught it.

Few could have predicted LAFFORGUE’s next step: he would become a passionate advocate of the theory of topoi.

Originally developed more than sixty years ago by Alexandre GROTHENDIECK, one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, the theory of topoi was regarded by GROTHENDIECK himself as profoundly important. Yet for decades it was met within academia with indifference, and at times even hostility. In an interview, LAFFORGUE remarked: “Grothendieck spent hundreds of pages explaining the importance of topoi, and the academic community simply did not respond. To me, that was absolutely astonishing.”

What surprised him even more was the stark contrast between academic skepticism and industrial enthusiasm.

“I found far more receptive listeners among engineers, specifically at Huawei France,” he explained. In 2021, LAFFORGUE formally joined the Huawei Paris Research Center. Many engineers there believed that the theory of topoi could potentially provide a mathematical foundation for artificial intelligence, offering forms of interpretability and formal logical structure that current deep learning methods struggle to achieve.

At Huawei, LAFFORGUE finally found an environment where he could devote himself to advancing a theory that had existed for sixty years, yet which few had dared to explore in depth.

A Lifelong Chinese Connection

LAFFORGUE has long shared a deep connection with China. In 2002, it was at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing that he received the Fields Medal. Since then, he has frequently returned to China for academic exchange.

In October 2025, LAFFORGUE visited Beijing Foreign Studies University and delivered a lecture titled “Mathematics: An Experience of Internationalism.”

At the Chern Lecture hosted by Nankai University, he presented a talk entitled “What Is a Point? What Is Space?” In the lecture, he proposed a novel perspective: that a real number can be understood as a logically consistent system of answers to questions about whether a number belongs to a given interval.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the cultivation of mathematical talent and the advancement of scientific research in China, LAFFORGUE received the Chinese Government Friendship Award in 2025.

临港的声音

At the 2025 World Laureates Forum, LAFFORGUE once again stood beneath the spotlight. Yet rather than speaking about his latest theorems, he repeatedly emphasized one idea: give young people time.

His own life is perhaps the strongest testament to this belief. It took him six years to resolve major problems connected to the Langlands program, and more than a decade to advance the theory of topoi. Truly transformative discoveries are rarely recognized immediately. What scientists need is not merely short-term funding, but sufficient time to prove the value of an idea.

From Paris to Shanghai, from member of the French Academy of Sciences to mathematician at a Huawei research laboratory, LAFFORGUE has followed a path few could replicate. Whether Alexandre GROTHENDIECK foresaw the future of artificial intelligence sixty years ago may never be known. But through his work, LAFFORGUE demonstrates that true scientists have always been idealists.

And at the Forum in Lingang, he solemnly passed that spirit of idealism on to the next generation.