Yu Rao Received the 2022 Wuxi AppTec Life Science and Chemistry Award

2022-12-17

On Dec. 17, the awarding ceremony of the 16th Wuxi AppTec Life Science and Chemistry Awards was held online. Rao Yu, Leading Scientist of CPL, received the Outstanding Achievement Award for developing the degrader that targets the BTK and GSPT1 proteins through a unique double mechanism, which provides a differentiation therapy for blood cancers.

The Wuxi AppTec Life Science and Chemistry Awards was established in 2007 to reward young scientific and technological talents who are engaged in research in chemistry and related fields, and who have made outstanding achievements in scientific research innovation and the development of industrial applications and high-tech industrialization. Up to date, a total of 287 outstanding scientists have received the award, while 27 have been selected as academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).

Yu Rao, Leading Scientist of CPL and Professor at School of Pharmaceutical Science, Tsinghua University. He was honored with the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars, the Shulan Medical Youth Award and VCANBIO Award for Biosciences and Medicine. Dr. Rao received his BA degree in 1999 from Shandong Medical University and his master’s degree in 2002 from School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Shandong Medical University (now emerged into Shandong University). He obtained the Ph.D. degree from University of Georgia in 2007. He then carried out post-doctoral research work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2007-2010). In January of 2010, he joined School of Medicine in Tsinghua University to start his independent research. He has been on the editorial board of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letter, Chinese Journal of Medicinal Letters and Chinese Journal of Chinese Journal of Medicinal Chemistry since 2014. His group has been utilizing the expertise in the fields of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology to develop lead compounds for important drug targets and explore new potential therapeutic targets through the development and application of proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) technology.