On August 24, the New Cornerstone Science Foundation announced the recipient list of the eighth Xplorer Prize in Beijing. A total of 50 young scientists were recognized this year, spanning 10 fields. Professor Chen Jia of the School of Life Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech University was among the five awardees in the Medical Science category.
Chen Jia is a tenured professor at the School of Life Science and Technology and Director of the Gene Editing Center at ShanghaiTech University. His primary research interests include DNA repair, gene editing, and gene therapy. His team has long been dedicated to developing gene editing tools and investigating the mechanisms of DNA repair, with results published in leading international journals such as Nature, Nature Biotechnology, and Cell Stem Cell. In April 2026, Chen Jia and collaborators from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Fudan University, and CorrectSequence Therapeutics published in Nature the IIT clinical trial results of a base-editing drug for β-thalassemia—the first clinical data from an ex vivo base-editing drug pipeline to enter human trials worldwide.
The Xplorer Prize is a philanthropic award funded by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation and independently selected by scientists, ranking among the most generous youth talent support programs in China. It targets outstanding young scientists working full-time in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao in the fields of basic science and frontier technology (male awardees 45 years old or younger, female awardees 48 or younger). Since its establishment in 2018, the prize has supported 397 distinguished young scientists, covering emerging leaders across basic science and frontier technology.
Chen Jia's award not only represents high recognition of his original contributions to gene editing and DNA repair, but also marks the authoritative academic acknowledgment of ShanghaiTech University's talent cultivation and scientific research strength in frontier life science fields.