Abstract
Chances and challenges in China.
Highlights
Chances and challenges in ChinaThere I was, 35 years old and at the crossroads of my scientific career. The current academic system in the Netherlands, like in many other places around the world (Powell, 2015), is not designed to have scientists staying in a postdoc position forever
China seemed a good place to take my chances, as it is one of the few countries where funding for R&D is growing instead of shrinking (Van Noorden, 2014)
After having received the positive outcome of my application and arranging the necessary paperwork to be able to work in China, my wife and I left for Beijing in July 2012
Summary
There I was, 35 years old and at the crossroads of my scientific career. The current academic system in the Netherlands, like in many other places around the world (Powell, 2015), is not designed to have scientists staying in a postdoc position forever. Is influenza one of the main research topics in the lab of Gao, but he serves as the Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and has the responsibility to supervise the battles against epidemics During this hectic period, many of my colleagues were working around the clock to solve the structures of the influenza surface molecules hemagglutinin and neuraminidase identified from the different clinical H7N9 isolates (Shi et al, 2013; Wu et al, 2013) and to track down the origins of the virus (Liu et al, 2013). One of my other colleagues, Jun Liu (Fig. 2), first went to Guinea and a few months later he went to help in Sierra Leone as well (Tong et al, 2015) Amidst all this global turmoil, I was about to leave Beijing to become an Associate Professor at the Xi’an Jiaotong-
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