Profile of Xiaowei Zhuang, winner of the 2020 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

Jan Vilcek and Prashant Nair; PNAS May 5, 2020 117 (18) 9660-9664

Xiaowei Zhuang receiving the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Image credit: Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation.

In 2006, the New York City-based Vilcek Foundation created an annual prize program for foreign-born biomedical scientists who have made major contributions to their fields while living and working in the United States. The founders, themselves immigrants from Czechoslovakia, established the program to raise public awareness of the indispensable role of immigrant scientists in ensuring the United States’ leadership on the world science stage. Recipients currently receive a cash award and commemorative sculpture designed by New York-based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister. Over the past 15 years, scientists born in 12 different countries have been selected by a jury of peers to receive Vilcek Prizes, illustrating the diversity of backgrounds of immigrant scientists in the United States who become leaders in their fields of study. In 2009 the prize program was expanded to include a second tier of prizes, Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise, for a younger generation of foreign-born biomedical scientists who have risen to prominence among peers through noteworthy early-career accomplishments. Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise include a cash award and commemorative plaque. Currently, three recipients are chosen each year to receive Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise (The Foundation also honors outstanding immigrants working in the arts and humanities through a parallel track of the prize program).

The 2020 Vilcek Prize in biomedical science has been awarded to Chinese-born Xiaowei Zhuang, a biophysicist at Harvard University, for her work in superresolution and genome-scale imaging.

For techniques that have allowed a clear-eyed glimpse into a hidden world, Zhuang has earned a wealth of accolades, including a 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, a top honor bestowed on scientists by titans of the technology industry at a glittering ceremony in Silicon Valley, touched by the glamor and brassy lights of tinseltown. At the ceremony in November 2018, as her mentor Chu watched contentedly from the audience, Zhuang, resplendent in an evening gown, accepted the prize from Hollywood star Lupita Nyong’o and Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg. With a modesty that masked the depth of her accomplishment, Zhuang explained her approach to science: “I have loved science since I was a school kid, amazed by the simple and elegant physics laws that explain the universe. As I grew older, I got more and more attracted by the unsolved mysteries in life sciences… So, I decided to merge these interests and devote my research to solving biological problems using multidisciplinary approaches.” Zhuang’s continuing efforts to transcend long-established limits through leaps of scientific imagination are a solid testament to her embrace of cross-disciplinary science.

See https://www.pnas.org/content/117/18/9660