Award honors young scientists who are on track to change the world
By Lindsay Brownell
(BOSTON) —Ying Kai Chan, Ph.D., a Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Church lab at Harvard Medical School, has been named a 2017 STAT Wunderkind in recognition of his work on gene therapy. The award honors young scientists and doctors who are blazing new trails in research and public health at the start of what promise to be impressive careers. A total of 26 winners were chosen from hundreds of nominations this year. The awardees are also being featured as part of Boston’s HubWeek festivities, and profiles of their work are published on STAT’s website.
Chan’s research focuses on engineering adeno-associated virus (AAV), a promising vehicle for delivering gene therapy to cells, so that it is able to evade the body’s natural immune response. By reducing AAV’s tendency to induce adverse reactions that hamper gene therapy, Chan hopes to one day bring long-lasting and more efficacious gene therapies to medical treatment centers worldwide.