On April 30, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences announced the newly-elected academicians and foreign academicians. A Chinese scientist's name reappeared – Prof. SHEN Kang, an alumnus of Tongji Medical College of HUST. Prof. SHEN has just won the membership of the U.S. Academy of Arts and Sciences a week ago!  

At this point, Prof. SHEN has become a member of two top U.S. academies of sciences, making him a "double academician".

Prof. Shen is currently a tenured professor in the Departments of Biology and Pathology at Stanford University, the director of the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “In the 1990s, Tongji Medical College provided me with a forward-looking basic research program that enabled me to be initiated into scientific research as an undergraduate --- a rare experience in China's higher education at that time. Remembering the rigorous medical education of my alma mater, this first experience of scientific research not only shaped my academic character, but also anchored my career direction. My teachers and classmates were like lighthouses, guiding me forward.” He once said.

Mr. LIU Bo, an alumnus of the year 1989 of Tongji Medical College of HUST, the Managing Director of China Development Capital Pharmaceutical Investment, and a member of the Global Advisory Board of the University of Rochester, mentioned that the selection of members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) is independent of each other and requires two rounds of nomination and evaluation, and candidates need to meet the standards of the two academies at the same time (e.g., both theoretical breakthroughs and application of the transformation), and so it's extremely rare to be elected as a member of the two academies. It is extremely rare to be selected as an academician of both academies. “SHEN Kang was elected within a week, firstly, because of the similarity of the selection cycles of the two academies (NAS usually announces the results in February and AAAS usually in April), and more importantly, because his research crosses the fields of neuroscience and medicine, which is in the direction of the focus of the two academies. Few members of the two academies have been honored globally in the past decade.” he added.