China's third-best university recruits prize-winning cancer scientist from US

Wan, formerly a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has returned to China full time to take up a chair professorship at the university in Hangzhou, eastern China, according to the South China Morning Post.

Zhejiang University ranks third in mainland China in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027, behind Tsinghua University and Peking University.

Wan specializes in intestinal infections, inflammation and immune responses, particularly how bacteria can contribute to the development of cancer. In a 2022 study published in the journal Cancer Discovery, Wan's team found that even a brief intestinal infection could increase the risk of colon cancer in mice, although the findings have not been confirmed in humans. The research earned him the Shikani/El-Hibri Prize for Discovery and Innovation from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2023.

In another study published in the journal Cell in 2024, his team investigated how proteins in breast milk help protect newborn mice against intestinal infections and support the development of beneficial gut bacteria.

Cancer researcher Fengyi Wan. Photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Wan graduated from Wuhan University in 1999 and earned a doctorate in biophysics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003. He moved to the U.S. in 2004 for postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked until 2010 before joining Johns Hopkins and eventually becoming a full professor.

During his U.S. career, he led more than 20 research projects supported by institutions including the NIH and published nearly 60 scientific papers, according to Zhejiang University. His laboratory received more than US$4.7 million in NIH research grants between 2011 and 2025, according to federal funding records.

He is now affiliated with a national laboratory at Zhejiang University's Second Affiliated Hospital, which conducts research into medical devices implanted in blood vessels.

His appointment follows several other high-profile hires from U.S. institutions this year.

Earlier this month, Jiang Qian, a former Johns Hopkins professor specializing in computational biology and eye diseases, joined Zhejiang University's Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital. The hospital announced his appointment on Oct. 8, according to Chinese news outlet The Paper.

In September, mathematician Fanghua Lin, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and former professor at New York University, joined Zhejiang University as a chair professor, ScienceNet reported, citing the university's faculty directory.

The same month, Jianguo Mei, a former chemistry department head at Purdue University, was reported to have joined Zhejiang University's Department of Polymer Science and Engineering as a chair professor.

In May, Kai Ge, a former senior investigator at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, joined the university's First Affiliated Hospital to establish an institute specializing in epigenetics, the study of how genes are switched on and off without changing their DNA sequences.