At the age of seventeen, as winner of the first-class prize of the National High School Mathematics Contest, Professor Shi Yi Gong was directly admitted to the School of Biophysics Science and Technology of Tsinghua University; with extraordinary academic performances, he graduated from Tsinghua one year in advance and went for further studies in the U.S.A.; he received his PhD. degree in biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University, and then conducted postdoctoral research in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, U.S.A.. As an internationally well-known structural biophysicist, and as the youngest tenured professor of the Department of Molecular Biophysics of Princeton University in the history of the Department, at the age of 41, in 2008, Professor Shi Yi Gong decidedly came back to his mother country and began to work as a tenured professor of Tsinghua University. He once said, “Loving your mother country is the plainest feeling; after all, who doesn’t love his mother?” His return has been seen as a sign of growth of China’s science and technology strengths.

After returning to China, he led his research team to employ biochemical and biophysical methods to study the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis, and the structure and functions of key membrane proteins and intracellular macromolecular machines, and made significant breakthroughs. With respect to the “Central Dogma” of molecular biology, he and his team interpreted the three-dimensional structure of ultra-high resolution spliceosome, thus greatly advanced people’s understanding of the “Central Dogma”. In 2013, he became Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign Fellow of the United States National Academy of Sciences, and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2014, he won the highest honor in Chinese Medicine, the Wu Jieping - Paul Janssen Pharmaceutical Award; in 2015, he was credited with contribution of Ten Great Advancements in China’s Life Sciences field, and won the “2015-2016 You Bring Charm to the World Award” by Phoenix Satellite Television. In 2016, he won the Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Achievement Award.

He has never forgot his motherland; he has given all his heart to his country; he is Professor Shi Yi Gong, who has made extraordinary achievements in the field of international structural biophysics, and made tremendous contributions to China’s development in science and technology, and education.