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

Abstract

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). Fig. 1. Xiaowei Zhuang receiving the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Image credit: Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation. Fig. 2. MPS in neurons revealed by STORM. Image credit: the Xiaowei Zhuang Laboratory. Fig. 3. Cell atlas of the preoptic region in mouse brain generated by MERFISH. Image credit: the Xiaowei Zhuang and Catherine Dulac Laboratories. Fig. 4. MERFISH images of RNAs from 10,050 genes in individual cells. Image credit: the Xiaowei Zhuang Laboratory. The 2020 Vilcek Prize in biomedical science has been awarded to Chinese-born Xiaowei Zhuang, a biophysicist at Harvard University, for her … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: pnair{at}nas.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1