Harvard Postdocs’ Entrepreneurial Dream Comes True

No Place Like Home

Wang’s return had a fortuitous effect on the lives of Liu Qingsong and his wife Liu Jing, who had already decided to go back to China. After living in the U.S. for more than a decade, Liu Qingsong still felt like a piece of duckweed floating on water, with no sense of belonging.

Liu Qingsong visited Wang during a business trip to Shanghai in 2010, and Wang invited the couple to work on the island. Liu, who had been involved in research and development of anti-tumor drugs, was attracted to the island’s “blank slate” regarding its life science and pharmaceutical research.

After inspecting the island’s facilities, Liu was impressed with their interdisciplinarity, as evidenced in their specialization in chemistry, material science, and physics, all of which are vital to his pharmaceutical research. Harvard Medical School did not have such conditions, least of all an SHMFF.

What had moved Liu most was meeting with Kuang Guangli, head of the Party committee of the Hefei Institutions. Kuang had returned to China at 32 after studying in Germany to pursue his research on the island. At that time Liu Qingsong was also 32, and he then made the decision to join the island’s scientific community. When he discussed this idea with his wife, she raised no objections, trusting his reasons for making this choice.

To locate more life science researchers, Liu Qingsong was given independent recruitment rights. The first candidate he thought of was Zhang Na, a specialist in nucleic acid. Born in Beijing, Zhang obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees in the United States, between the years 1996 and 2005, when he started his postdoctoral research at the Harvard Medical School. However, the longer he spent abroad, the more he yearned to return to China. “My interest was aroused when Liu told me about the island’s SHMFF,” Zhang said. Although there was a considerable disparity between his income in the U.S. and in China, Zhang nevertheless came to Science Island in 2012.

“There was no SHMFF in Beijing, this was what drew me to the island,” Zhang said.

Lin Wenchu came to Science Island in 2013. Born in Hubei Province, Lin started his postdoctoral research work using animal models for the genetic regulation of cancer at Harvard Medical School in 2007. Upon receiving Liu’s invitation, he accepted without hesitation. “I have long dreamed of the opportunity to establish my own independent laboratories – something that would have been impossible in the U.S., where I was always working for other people,” Lin said.

Wang Wenchao and his wife Zhang Xin took longer to yield to Liu’s persuasion than Zhang Na and Lin Wenchu. Their son and daughter were born in the U.S., they had a stable life, and their research was going smoothly. “My daughter was happy in her environment, and I could see she would find it difficult to adapt to a new life in China,” Zhang Xin said. Her decision to return was prompted by an international student gathering where each child held his or her national flag. But China’s Five-Star Red Flag meant nothing to her daughter. This upset Zhang. “Our child had been completely westernized. When we spoke to her in Chinese, she replied in English. This seemed wrong to me.” In 2012, therefore, the couple concluded their research at the Harvard Medical School and came to Science Island with their two children.