OnFeb. 27, 2019, the Basic Research Management Center of the Ministry of Scienceand Technology announced the 14th edition of China’s Top 10 ScientificAdvances. The research team led by Prof. HU Hailan from theZJU School ofMedicine offers a systematic explanation for the mechanism ofdepression that the bursting activity of lateral habenula neurons inhibitsdownstream monoaminergic reward centers and drives depression-like behaviors.Their discovery on this neuronal circuit disproves the previously dominantmonoamine hypothesis of depression and provides a simple model to explain theantidepression property of anesthetic painkiller ketamine. This workprovides a framework for developing new rapid-acting antidepressants, whichwill benefit some 300 million people worldwide.

Discoveriesby two ZJU alumni also make it to the list. Dr. LI Dong (Optical Engineering, BS'06), a researcher in theCAS Institute ofBiophysics develops a technology to visualize intracellularorganelle and cytoskeletal interactions at nanoscale resolution on millisecondtimescales. Dr. FU Xiangdong (Agricultural Sciences, PhD'01), aresearcher from the CAS Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology developsan approach to modulating plant growth–metabolism coordination for sustainableagriculture.  

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