Award-winning dissertation on CRISPR-based diagnostics
Chunlei Jiao receives Helmholtz Doctoral Prize
In his doctoral thesis at the Helmholtz Institute Würzburg (HIRI), Chunlei Jiao has paved the way for the development of the CRISPR-based RNA detection and recording platforms known as LEOPARD and TIGER. LEOPARD is a CRISPR-based method that is highly multiplexable, with the potential to detect a variety of disease-related biomarkers in just one test. On the other hand, TIGER enables the recording of transient cellular events at the single-cell level. The Helmholtz Association honors this outstanding achievement with the Doctoral Prize in the research field Health.
The Helmholtz Doctoral Prize
Every year, the Helmholtz Association honors the best and most original doctoral theses in each of its six research fields. Since 2022, the Helmholtz Association has been awarding the Doctoral Prize in two different categories in order to recognize doctoral theses with and without an explicit application: Track A for knowledge-driven research and Track B for application-oriented research. In total, 12 prizes can be granted.
Chunlei Jiao is the first PhD student at HIRI—and at its parent organization, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig—to be recognized with the Helmholtz Doctoral Prize. As the winner in Track B, he is awarded prize money of 5,000 euros. In addition, he will receive funding for a Helmholtz Field Study Fellowship of up to three months. The Field Study Fellowship finances the market exploration phase to better understand customer needs and is accompanied by field study mentoring.
